Reactions: An Illustrated Exploration of Elements, Molecules, and Change in the Universe, Book 3 of 3

Whether high school, college, or adult learner, anyone with the least bit of curiosity about the universe will benefit from the three book series. If you are a parent, these books of his will be a hit with your child helping them to enjoy science even if they aren’t headed in that direction. There are multiple pictures, photos, to entertain and not bore. Plus his dry sense of humor should delight and his child-like curiosity might spark an interest in you or your child.The author debunks a lot of ‘junk science’ and hokum spewed out by those who are either ignorant or want to sell you something useless.

Theodore Gray is to popular science communication to the broad public as Jimi Hendrix is to the guitar. He has made an enormous contribution to making chemistry interesting and build a foundation for student to advance to formal study with all its equations. I have a hard science doctorate my self and still enjoy his books and get some good information from them.As an aside, his humorous approach will most likely make most readers more interested and his opinions on subjects such as the pseudoscience of homeopathic medicine are in keeping with the findings of science. We live in the 21st century, not the 18th.

My college age boy LOVED this book, it’s informative and beautiful, highly recommend.

My son wanted more on the topic of chemistry than what his curriculum was offering. He wasn't ready for math-oriented chem, so this was a great option. Thanks for such an engaging book, my son can't put it down!

I now own the three volume set by Theodore Gray (Elements, Molecules, and Reactions). These are wonderful books for anyone with a curious mind. They are written in an informative, breezy style with a dash of droll (and not so droll) humor. I am not a scientist, never studied chemistry in school and did my best to sleep through every physics lecture I was required to attend. Still, these books were not beyond me. Every bit if information, every fact, every explanation was totally accessible and interesting. The only regret I have now is that I didn't pay attention when I should have been learning this in school. Who new this stuff was so fascinating?

Despite comments about packaging and bending of the Alchemical Table, mine came in a box along with the book >Reactions< by Theodore Gray to complete my set of three wonderful books. This, the Alchemical version of the Periodic Table is just what I wanted and is by far better than I anticipated. The book is just what I expected as I have the earlier two, >Elements< and >Molecules<, which are incredible.

Wish I had these when I was a kid

While I much enjoyed Gray's other two books in this series, I found this one rather hard to follow in several places. For example, when he deals with some of the first reactions in the book -- how the sun produces light and energy through nuclear fusion is the one that leaps to mind -- he is good at showing us how the complex series of reactions involved lead to various chemical products, but there is far less on the most important aspect, namely how and why it is that these reactions result in the release of electro-magnetic energy in the form of quadrillions of photons at various frequencies. The book is also weak on providing the actual quantitative aspects of the reaction, for example, how much energy at what temperatures is released by the combination of the three components of gunpowder when they explode. ... I also agree with the comments of another commentator here, that the use of so much white on black text is really annoying. These are fairly large flaws, but I'm still giving it 4 stars because the whole idea of trying to explain complex chemical reactions to a lay audience is still quite worthwhile.