"Just how does the periodic table help us make sense of the world around us? Using vivid imagery, ingenious analogies, and liberal doses of humor, P.W. Atkins answers this question. He shows us that the Periodic Kingdom is a systematic place. Detailing the geography, history, and governing institutions of this imaginary landscape, he demonstrates how physical similarities can point to deeper affinities, and how the location of an element can be used to predict its properties." "Atkins tells us about the cosmic origins of the elements and introduces the intrepid explorers and cartographers who expanded the frontiers of the kingdom: Humphry Davy, the nineteenth-century chemist who identified and catalogued several of the common metallic elements; Dmitri Mendeleev, the Russian scientist who (legend has it) saw in a dream the prototype of the modern periodic table; and the Manhattan Project scientists who originated the techniques still used today to map the dangerously radioactive regions."--Jacket.