Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Disappearing Spoon, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Storytelling and Science
Experimentation, Accidents, and Discovery
Nature vs. Culture
Science for Good vs. for Evil
The Expansion and Limits of Human Knowledge
Summary
Analysis
The longest word to ever appear in an English-language document is from a 1964 reference book called Chemical Abstracts. It is 1,185 letters long and describes a protein on the tobacco mosaic virus, which was the first virus ever discovered. The word for the protein is so long because each part of it describes a part of the protein. Proteins are made up of strings of amino acids which are themselves made from the most “versatile” element, carbon. The reason why amino acids chain together is due to the fact that they are made up of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. A carbon atom will share its electrons with up to four other atoms, making stable bonds. Nitrogen similarly shares electrons, and bonding between nitrogen and carbon takes place in an amino acid.
This passage provides a good example of Kean using something from human culture (a long word made up of many short parts) in order to aid understanding of something from the natural world (proteins). Of course, there are limits to this type of metaphor, which doesn’t tend to be very precise. However, as long as the reader takes it as a general idea rather than a direct translation, it will likely help them to remember what proteins are and how they basically work.
Themes
Scientists eventually became able to identify extremely long sequences of amino acids, such that the practice of naming proteins after the amino acids they contain had to be abandoned. Reading the periodic table vertically, one can see that carbon is more similar to the element below it, silicon, than the elements next to it. Whereas all the lifeforms known to humans are carbon-based, science-fiction creators have dreamed that there may be silicon-based life somewhere in the universe. There are, however, important differences between carbon and silicon: for example, while human lungs successfully process carbon dioxide, inhaling silicon dioxide (from which sand and glass are primarily comprised) is dangerous for human health.
This is one of the most exciting sides of science, where knowledge about the fundamental building blocks of the universe meets speculation about wild possibilities like alien life. Here, Kean shows how grounding speculation in what is known about the universe both inspires and limits the kinds of distant, fantastical scenarios humans can imagine.
Themes
Some argue that silicon-based life is plausible because some earth animals, such as sea urchins, have silicon in their bodies. However, in order for silicon-based life to exist, these alien life-forms would have to be able to draw silicon in and out of their bodies in the same way carbon-based life-forms do with carbon. Yet while carbon dioxide exists as a gas at Earth temperatures, allowing life-forms to breathe it in, silicon dioxide doesn’t become a gas until 4,000ºF. Anywhere one might expect life to exist, it would be a solid. Silicon-based life thus wouldn’t be able to breathe. Furthermore, such life-forms would have no use for blood, and silicon doesn’t dissolve in water.
In response to this passage, it might be tempting to argue for the existence of silicon life-forms which somehow have the ability to “breathe” solid silicon. Just because such a process would be totally foreign and inexplicable to humans doesn’t mean it cannot exist. At the same time, scientists must base their speculation about the universe on what is already known even while they acknowledge the limits of this information.
Themes
Overall, no one can definitively rule out the existence of silicon-based life, but based on the available information it seems highly unlikely. Yet that doesn’t mean silicon is unimportant. The column that contains silicon and carbon also contains germanium, tin, and lead. Germanium is the “black sheep” of this group. After failed attempts to build a silicon amplifier, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain built a germanium amplifier in 1947, which they called the “transistor.” William Shockley, an electrical engineer and physicist who’d attempted to build the silicon amplifier, tried to “steal credit” for their work. (Later in life, he went on to become a eugenicist.)
Here Kean shifts from the unknown possibilities of alien life to a much more practical, everyday matter: electrical engineering. An amplifier is a piece of electronic equipment that increases the power of a signal. It is a foundational component of electronic technology and thus finding the best element through which to construct it was a vital—and lucrative—task.
Themes
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Shockley managed to convince people that he did indeed play a key role in the development of the germanium amplifier. However, as electrical technology developed, engineers began to wonder if silicon would actually be a better element to use in making transistors after all. Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley all won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956. Yet the transistor industry was at the time in need of major change. Jack Kilby, an electrical engineer from Kansas, was hired by Texas Instruments in 1958. There, the computer hardware required an enormous number of cheap and dysfunctional silicon transistors. While the other employees were on vacation, Kilby experimented with building his own invention: an integrated circuit.
This passage depicts a particular (and rather amusing) trope of scientific innovation. While some people can get caught up focusing one problem (e.g., whether geranium or silicon is the better element to use for transistors), someone else might find a solution by abandoning the initial framework and focusing on a different answer altogether (e.g., building an integrator circuit to use instead of transistors).
Themes
Unlike with the use of multiple silicon transistors, the integrated circuit didn’t have to be soldered (and re-soldered) together. Kilby never received proper credit for his invention, which instead went to “one of Shockley’s proteges.” Yet over time his achievement gradually became acknowledged and in 2000 he finally won the Nobel. However, although the first integrated circuit was made from germanium, engineers soon switched to silicon due to its cheapness and abundance. Like many elements, germanium was left “anonymous.” Only a few have reached silicon’s level of fame.
Here, Kean draws an analogy between the fame of scientists (measured by things such as winning the Nobel) and the fame of elements (measured by use in important products). There is a sense in which this analogy is a little silly, as elements are inanimate and therefore don’t care whether they are famous to humans. However, it makes for an entertaining and memorable way to tell the story of germanium in human culture.
Themes
