I teach undergraduate and graduate courses in physical chemistry, and introductory courses for majors and non-majors. I also supervise our teacher education program that prepares students to teach chemistry and physics in secondary schools. I advise the students in the program to maintain a file of articles, pictures, and references coordinated with the topics that are likely to come up in their curricula. I believe that the same practice can help teachers at any level. What I have in mind are found in the titles below. Some are books published a while ago; all are items I have read recently and which I think might be of interest other teachers of science, and especially chemistry. I pass them along to you with my recommendation.

Hal Harris

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Selection for January, 2007: "The Immortal Game: A History of Chess" by David Shenk, Doubleday 2006 325 pp. 9780385510103, $26 One might expect that an especially memorable chess match would have been a world championship game, or at least a tournament competition. However, one of the most famous matches ever played was an exhibition that had no significance for any competition. It was played in London in the middle of the 19th century, between two players you have never heard of (Aldolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky). This remarkable game, an archetype of "romantic" chess, is used as a scaffold on which David Shenk hangs the whole history of this addictive pastime. As he describes this relatively short game, disclosing the moves a few at a time in most chapters (and none in others), he interweaves anecdotes and history that provide perspective on this particular game and its relationship to an evolving sport. It is especially fitting in this time of war in the middle east to be reminded that chess originated well over a thousand years ago in the Muslim world, and that it has fascinated and challenged mankind through a substantial part of written history. The reason I recommend this book to teachers of science is that I have seen how chess can level the field of play for young people in a way that no other competition can. This game can help both minority and majority kids of both genders (especially with the model of Grandmaster Susan Polgar) to develop patience, concentration, foresight, and strategic thinking. I encourage teachers to consider establishing chess clubs like the one that Shenk describes in his last chapter, "The Next War" and Polgar encourages through her foundation at http://www.susanpolgar.com.

Selection for February, 2007: "Exploding Disk Cannons, Slimemobiles, and 32 Other Projects for Saturday Science" by Neil A. Downie, Johns Hopkins University Press 2006 295 pp. 9780801885075, $19.95 Neil Downie runs a Saturday science program for kids in Guildford, UK, that appears to be the most fun that anybody could have. This book is the third in a series that describes projects that he has invented for kids to build and investigate (often with the help of an adult). Most of the projects would ordinarily be classified as engineering, but several involve chemistry, and the science and mathematics are thoroughly described, along with helpful suggestions and pitfalls to be avoided. Along with new motors, transmissions, and detonators for balloons, this one includes a method of printing that uses electrolytic iodine to develop an image, a method of measuring the flow of dry materials via triboelectricity, a sensitive method for discriminating solvents on the basis of how they swell (and therefore change the conductance of) polyethene. The "slimemobile" is a vehicle that oozes along a flat surface on a of plenum of gelatin that is constantly injected under the bottom of car, and the "exploding disk cannons" of the title use compressed air to send a projectile when a disk between high and low pressure is fractured on command. All of Downie's books are consistent with the quote from Douglas Adams in his Preface: "I can't tell you anything ... you never believe anything unless you've worked it out for yourself."

Selection for March, 2007: "An Exact Value for Avogadro's Number" by Ronald M. Fox and Theodore P. Hill, American Scientist March-April, 2007 p. 104 $4.95 The currently accepted formal definition of a mole is the number of carbon-12 atoms in exactly 12 grams of the pure substace. This is not a good operational definition, however, because it takes too long to find, purify, and count all those atoms. The best experimental value is based on x-ray diffraction experiments on silicon crystals and puts the number within 0.0000010 of 6.0221415 x 10^23. However, that number is not satisfactory to the perceptive (read "smart aleck") student of chemistry who challenges his teacher with the fact that the definition requires that Avogadro's number be an integer. Because the definition of a (kilo)gram, represented by a platinum- iridium cylinder stored in Severes, France, changes slightly with calibration experiments and cleaning, the size of the mole theoretically changes proportionally. Fox and Hill, two noun-named professors at Georgia Tech, propose to define the kilogram in terms of a fixed value of Avogadro's number. Perhaps you and your students can determine why they chose the value they propose (602,214,141,070,409,084,099,072). Once you have defined NA, then the kilogram is determined and you can tell the keepers of the kilogram cylinder that their work is done.

Selection for April, 2007: "The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life On Earth" by E. O. Wilson, W. W. Norton & Co. 2006 175 pp. 9780393062175, $21.95 One of my picks last year was the frontal attack of an atheist scientist on religion. It was Richard Dawkins' popular "The God Delusion". This month, my choice is a respectful and conciliatory appeal by entomologist E. O. Wilson for common cause between religion and science in the preservation of what is left of Eden. "The Creation" is written as an epistle to a fictitious Southern Baptist preacher. Without minimizing or compromising the scientific understanding of the processes of creation, Wilson says that we all must look past differences in understanding about the origin of life, because we cannot afford to allow them to distract us from the monumental job of cataloging and preserving the wonderfully diverse forms that exist on our planet, most of which are unknown to us. One of the things that I like about "The Creation" is that Wilson shows how ordinary citizens can contribute meaningfully to the understanding of the species of earth by participating in projects such as the BioBlitz all-species inventories that have already occurred in New York's Central Park, in the Dominican Republic, and in Forest Park in my home town of St. Louis.

Selection for May, 2007: "The Unintended Consequences of Hyperhydration" by Jon Mooallem, New York Times Magazine May 27, 2007 p. 30 The folly of spending more per liter to buy water than gasoline has been mentioned in Hal's Picks previously (July 2003). That article, by Michael Schermer, emphasized the waste of money that this boondoggle constitutes. In the New York Times magazine this week is another argument against the practice, and that is its impact on the environment. About thirty billion individual servings of water will be bought in the US this year, and nearly all of those empties will be discarded. And while some states have laws requiring deposits for containers of carbonated beverages, none of them require deposits on water - or tea, juice, and energy drinks, for that matter. So called "bottle bills" never get off the ground in states that have powerful brewery and grocery store lobbies, but the issue is far more interesting and complicated than the good environmentalists versus the bad industrialists. The recycling that occurs now is the result of voluntarily actions of motivated individuals; if there were a deposit on non-fizzy drink containers, the part of the recycling stream that consists of the desirable clear PET containers would dry up, adversely impacting the economics of municipal curbside recycling. It would also affect the livelihood of the homeless people who scour our cities for cans and bottles.

"Beautiful Evidence" by Edward R. Tufte, Graphics Press LLC 2006 232 pp. 9780961392178, $52 The first of this series of books by Edward Tufte, "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" was the one that, in my opinion, would be of most practical use to the average scientist. That was six volumes and twenty four years ago. I would recommend the most recent one, "Beautiful Information", as a logical continuation. In it, he provides ideas for annotating and enhancing information in photographs, the use of "sparklines" to highlight tabular data, the use of links and causal arrows, the proper combination of numbers and images, a reprise of the principles of the first volume in a chapter entitled "The Fundamental Principles of Analytical Design", and a criticism of substandard arguments and faulty presentations in "Corruption in Evidence Presentations: Effects without Causes, Cherry-Picking, Overreaching, Chartjunk, and the Rage to Conclude". This is a beautiful book (as are all of the others) with high-quality color reproductions of inventive and economical depictions of data and concepts. Tufte has himself quite a racket. He publishes his own books (Graphics Press LLC) which he sells at relatively high prices (but justified by their production values). These provide grist for his relatively expensive seminars for graphic designers. If you can't get to (or afford) one of his design seminars, you can profit by his books. Also, be sure to visit the lively online forums linked from his Web site.

Selection for June, 2007: "Einstein: His Life and Universe" by Walter Isaacson, Simon & Schuster 2007 675 pp. 9780743264730, $32 What were personal qualities of the greatest scientist of the twentieth century that differentiated him from his contemporaries? I have read a lot of books about Albert Einstein, who was one of my childhood heroes (along with the Lone Ranger). We had a lot in common - the violin and physics, although he was said to enjoy music practice more than I did, and he was said to be tolerant of kids who liked science. I never got to meet my hero; he died when I was 15. None of those books that I have read about him, until this one by Walter Isaacson, satisfactorily addressed the the questions about the person behind the scientist that I longed to have answered. Even the author admits (on NPR) that there may be better popular books about Einstein's science, for example Abraham Pais' "Subtle is the Lord", but Walter Isaacson was the first writer to get access to Einstein's voluminous archive of personal correspondence. With that, he was able to put together the most intimate history available. The results are not all sweetness. Einstein was a pretty awful family man, and he had a sizable ego (although he tried to appear modest in public). Isaacson does a good job with the science, too. Despite not being a scientist himself, he acknowledges the help of some excellent physicists (including Brian Greene, Lawrence Krass, Douglas Stone, Murray Gell-Mann, David Mermin, and Gerald Holton, among others). With advisors like those, you can't go far wrong, and Isaacson doesn't. This is a book for you and your students.

Selection for July, 2007: "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Random House 2007 365 pp. 9781400063512, $26.95 Like Malcolm Gladwell’s “Tipping Point”, Nassim Taleb’s “Black Swan” threatens to become a permanent part of the lexicon. In this best-selling book, he makes the argument that evolution has prepared us to over-emphasize continuous, Gaussian relationships because they occur much more frequently than do rare but momentous, unpredictable events. Until the discovery of Australia, it was believed in Europe that all swans were white, and this conclusion was "confirmed" by every sighting of such a bird. But the first sighting of a black swan invalidated previous understanding of the nature of the animal. Talib's "Black Swans" are things like the spread of the Internet, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, the market crashes of 1929 or 1987, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and 9/11. In science, they could be paradigm shifts, in the Kuhn’s “Structure of Scientific Revolutions”. They can have positive or negative effects (often both), but one cannot prepare for them in detail because they have very small probabilities but huge consequences. Since they aren't predictable, Taleb doesn't tell us how to predict them, but he provides advice about how to position yourself to survive or even benefit from their occurrence. Remember the Boy Scout motto.

Selection for August, 2007: "SchoolHouse Crock: Fifty Years of Blaming America's Educational system for Our Stupidity" by Peter Schrag, Harper's Magazine September, 2007 p. 36 $6.95 Is there something wrong with American schools? As Peter Schrag says, is there some reason why our schools are unable to outduel the Chinese and Indians in the training of scientists and engineers; educate millions of children from Southern and Eastern Europe, and also from a hundred Third World cultures;make every child "proficient" in English and math; educate the blind, the mentally handicapped, and the emotionally disturbed to the same levels as all others; and teach the evils of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and premarital sex; prepare all for college; teach immigrants in their native languages; teach driver's ed; feed lunch to poor children; entertain the community with Friday-night football and midwinter basketball; sponsor dances and fairs for the kids; and serve as the prime (and often only) social welfare agency for both children and parents? Nearly all of the teachers that I know who do not have serious problems with NCLB are those who teach in schools that are not bound by its provisions. Schrag says that, "The military-style reading and math drills promptedy by President Bush's No Child Left Behind program have pushed out history, music, art, and phys ed, and may in fact be destroying American schools". It also seems to me to discourage innovation in the teaching of science and mathematics.

"The Dark Side: What we’re missing in the night sky" by David Owen, The New Yorker August 20, 2007 p. 28 $4.5 One of the most memorable experiences of my youth was when I was camping in the Mojave Desert. Having lived all of my life up to that time in Los Angeles, I had never seen a truly dark night. Lying under the stars, I found it very difficult to close my eyes because of the extraordinary beauty of the sky, full of stars and planets - the Milky Way clearly visible. Unfortunately, my chldren and grandchildren are unlikely to have such an experience because of the pollution of our sky by manmade light. There is an organization that is trying to recover our darkness and prevent further light pollution. It is called the International Dark-Sky Association, and its goals and activities are described in this very nice article by David Owen. As an advocate in my own neighborhood against the installation of streetlights, I am happy to have evidence that less illumination very often results in more useful vision and greater security.

Selection for September, 2007: "Four Laws That Drive the Universe" by Peter Atkins, Oxford University Press 2007 130 pp. 9780199232369, $19.95 This little book is a gem. I have to admit that most of the students who have completed my first physical chemistry semester, which is all about thermodynamics, would benefit from reading this wonderful explanation of the central place that these topics play in every aspect of life. In courses, we all tend to teach our students what is necessary to solve problems and to survive the partial derivatives. In Four Laws, Peter Atkins beautifully and clearly describes the larger tableau. He even begins with the afterthought - the Zeroth Law - and spends a chapter each on the other three, with an additional one on Free Energy. While he did not have the courage to put the dreaded T word in the title (for which he apologizes in the first paragraph of the Preface), he has kept the volume so small and light that it might entice the unwary to actually pick it up. It would be a good idea to read it before or during a thermo course. This is a small cousin to another of Atkins' books that is a favorite of mine, The Second Law, which one can still find in the used book market or in libraries.

Selection for October, 2007: "Lavoisier in the Year One: The Birth of a New Science in an Age of Revolution" by Madison Smartt Bell, W. W. Norton 2005 214 pp. 393328546, 9780393328547, $13.95 There is supposedly a Chinese curse, "May he live in interesting times". While the origin of this phrase is apparently not really in China, it certainly apply to the life of one of the first modern chemists. Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier was a French nobleman who lived from 1743 until he was beheaded in 1794. He is given credit for the first statement of the law of conservation of mass, which was possible only after his careful studies of the chemistry of gases. He recognized and isolated both oxygen and hydrogen, was instrumental in discrediting the theory of phlogiston, and he introduced the metric system. One might guess that, had it not been for Lavoisier, current chemistry textbooks would only be about fifteen pages long. What got him beheaded was his involvement in pre-revolutionary French economics and politics, in which he was involved up to his ears. The author of this history is best-known for his novels (none of which I have read), but he uses writing skills to good effect here, and I did not notice any big errors (but I'm just an amateur in chemical history).

Selection for November, 2007: "Germ Stories" by Arthur Kornberg, University Science Books 2007 72 pp. 9781891389511, $22.5 Arthur Kornberg won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1959, and just recently passed away (October, 2007). When his three sons were small, he used to tell them stories and poems about the "germs" he was studying. The subsequent generation of grandchildren came along, catalyzing a whole new batch of poetry and tales. This book is a collection of those witty and charming stories, with drawings by Adam Alaniz and enhanced photography by Robert Kolter. One of the children who heard these stories apparently took them seriously: Roger Kornberg won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His two brothers, Tom and Ken became (merely!) Professors of Biochemistry at UC-San Francisco (first person to purify DNA polymerase II and III) and a distiguished architect specializing in the design of biochemical and biotechnological laboratories, respectively. The publisher does not guarantee Nobels for all of the children to whom this book is read, but about one third of them should make it. This would be a fun and challenging gift for the right child.

"Special Issue: Water, The Wellspring of Life" by Many authors, Natural History November, 2007 pp. 29-70 $2.5 "Whiskey is for drinkin', water is for fightin'" goes the old saying. The current (November, 2007) issue of Natural History has nine articles about what we will be fighting over. "A Special Brew", by Christopher Mundy, Shawn Kathmann, and Gregory Schenter is the one that is most "chemical", but the others describe some environmental aspects of water resources. An overview of freshwater is provided by Eleanor Sterling; the ways in which life-forms adapt to hydrological environments is done by Dolly Setton; the despoilment of water habitats is depicted by Eleanor Sterling and Merry Camhi; the continuing inadequacy of the flood defenses of New Orleans is written by Shea Penland. Technological solutions to water contamination are illustrated by Chuck Carter; Assam Alwash, who grew up in Iraq, writes about the assault on Iraq's marshlands and their revival through global aid; the political and social ramifications of the Jordan River resource is done by Sandral Postel, and there are also several books about water resources reviewed in this issue. It is worthwhile picking up a copy for Science and Society lessons.

Selection for December, 2007: "None of the Above: What I.Q. doesn't tell you about race" by Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker December 17, 2007 p. 92 $4.5 The whole idea of IQ as a measure of intelligence has been roundly criticized by scientists such as the late Stephen J. Gould ("The Mismeasure of Man"), but tests continue to be given, and scores recorded in "permanent records". Do they have any significance and, if so, what is it? A new book, "What is Intelligence?", by James Flynn (Cambridge University Press; $22) prompts this brilliant precis and commentary by the ever-perceptive Malcolm Gladwell. I haven't yet read the book, but I can certainly endorse this review (which is available online at Gladwell's website). According to both Flynn and Gladwell, even the tests themselves are necessarily mutating measures of whatever it is that the numbers record. That thing that is measured is apparently more clearly related to the richness and diversity of experience than to any genetic limitations. As educators, we should be aware that as Gladwell says, "IQ measures not just the quality of a person's mind but the quality of the world that person lives in".

"The Copernican Myths" by Mano Singham, Physics Today (American Institute of Physics) December 20, 2007 p. 48 When asked by one of our students about the significance of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) and his revolutionary (pun intended) theory of the solar system, most of us would recite the folkloric tale. A brilliant astronomer, dissatisfied with the inaccuracies of Ptolemy, devised a completely new model for the solar system. His "demotion of mankind" from a privileged position at the center of the universe led to fierce opposition by the Catholics, who burned Giordano Bruno at the stake for championing heliocentrism. Unfortunately, what most of us know about Copernicus is wrong. Mano Singham points out in this article that opposition of the Catholic church was not immediate, that Protestants were even more vociferous in their opposition, that Bruno's other heretical views might have gotten him scorched anyway, and that the bottom of the universe was not necessarily the most desirable position, in the opinion of theologians. This article is a very nice supplement to the Hal's Pick of October, 2004 -"The Book Nobody Read", by Owen Gingerich.

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Hal's Selections in 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995