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Genre/Form: | Autobiography Autobiographies Biographies Personal Narrative Biography |
---|---|
Additional Physical Format: | Online version: Sacks, Oliver W. Uncle Tungsten. New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2001 (OCoLC)623614260 |
Named Person: | Oliver Sacks; Oliver W Sacks; Oliver W Sacks; Oliver Sacks; Oliver W Sacks; Oliver W Sacks; Oliver Sacks |
Material Type: | Biography, Internet resource |
Document Type: | Book, Internet Resource |
All Authors / Contributors: |
Oliver Sacks |
ISBN: | 0375404481 9780375404481 0676972616 9780676972610 9780375704048 0375704043 |
OCLC Number: | 46937635 |
Description: | viii, 337 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm |
Contents: | Uncle Tungsten -- "37" -- Exile -- "An ideal metal" -- Light for the masses -- The land of Stibnite -- Chemical recreations -- Stinks and bangs -- Housecalls -- A chemical language -- Humphry Davy: a poet-chemist -- Images -- Mr. Dalton's round bits of wood -- Lines of force -- Home life -- Mendeleev's garden -- A pocket spectroscope -- Cold fire -- Ma -- Penetrating rays -- Madame Curie's element -- Cannery row -- The world set free -- Brilliant light -- The end of the affair. |
Responsibility: | Oliver Sacks. |
More information: |
Abstract:
Long before Oliver Sacks became a neurologist and one of our finest science writers, he was a small English boy fascinated by metals -- and also by chemical reactions, the louder and smellier the better. His curiosity was encouraged and abetted by brilliantly quirky relatives: Auntie Len, who taught him that the beauty of numbers can be found in the spiral face of a sunflower; Uncle Dave, who invited the boy to his light-bulb factory; and two older brothers who entertained him by making ammonium dichromate "volcanoes." But Sacks's childhood was interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War, when he was evacuated from London and sent to live in a boarding school that rivaled Dickens's grimmest creations. He was sustained through those difficult years by his passion for learning and for finding patterns in the world around him. Overflowing with humor, sadness, sensuous recollection, and the almost physical rapture of discovery, Uncle Tungsten re-creates the wonder of science as it is first experienced and chronicles the birth of an extraordinary and original mind.
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Osler Fellows Library
Donated by Dr. Gordon Crelinsten, 2013. May Oliver Sacks' insights inspire you and imbue you with similar enthusiasm and zest to chase your dreams.
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Similar Items
Related Subjects:(16)
- Sacks, Oliver, -- 1933-2015.
- Neurologists -- England -- Biography.
- Sacks, Oliver W. -- Enfance et jeunesse.
- Sacks, Oliver W. -- Et la chimie.
- Sacks, Oliver, -- 1933-2015
- Neurologists.
- England.
- Biografie
- Natuurwetenschappen.
- Chemie.
- QUÍMICOS (BIOGRAFIAS)
- TUNGSTÊNIO.
- METAIS.
- Sacks, Oliver W.
- Neurologists -- Biography.
- Neurology
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