Name: Uncle Tungsten
ISBN: 9781509813698

Uncle Tungsten

"From his earliest days, Oliver Sacks - the distinguished neurologist who is also one of the most remarkable storytellers of our time - was irresistibly drawn to understanding the natural world. Born into a large family of doctors, metallurgists, chemists, physicists, and teachers, his curiosity was encouraged and abetted by aunts, uncles, parents, and older brothers. But soon after his sixth birthday, the Second World War broke out and he was evacuated from London - as were hundreds of thousands of children - to escape the bombing. Exiled to a school that rivaled Dickens's grimmest, fed on a steady diet of turnips and beetroots, tormented by a sadistic headmaster, and allowed home only once in four years, he felt desolate and abandoned.". "When he returned to London in 1943 at the age of ten, he was a changed, withdrawn boy, one who desperately needed order to make sense of his life. He was sustained by his secret passions: for numbers, for metals, and for finding patterns in the world around him. Under the tutelage of his "chemical" uncle, Uncle Tungsten, Sacks began to experiment with "the stinks and bangs that almost define a first entry into chemistry": tossing sodium off a bridge to see it take fire in the water below; producing billowing clouds of noxious smelling chemicals in his home lab.

What Hacker News says

red_admiralSep 2026

More people should read Oliver Sacks' book Uncle Tungsten. As a kid he was allowed to buy real chemicals for his chemistry set and was told things like "can you make slightly less hydrogen peroxide next time". Minors buying pitchblende (Uranium ore) at the local drugstore for experiments? Sure, might encourage them to be scientists.

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red_admiralApr 2025

Everyone should read Oliver Sacks' autobiography "Uncle Tungsten" - the past is a different country.

Back in the day, a child could pick up chemicals and do experiments at home - one day Sacks' parents told him, "We'll install a fume cupboard for you, but can you make less poison gas next time?"

You could also be legally under-age and not allowed to vote yet, but you could just buy pitchblende (uranium) and several other radioactive substances for your experiments.

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ProllyInfamousNov 2023

As long as we're discussing Dr. Sacks, I just read his short story (part of same-titled book) "An Anthropologist on Mars." The titles derive from Dr. Grandin Temple's perception of being high-functioning autist in academia/husbandry; she is best-known for re-designing slaughterhouse shutes, able to "see" as animals do.

Her entire story left me, a spectrum-kiddo, grasping for what "real" even is.

The thing that struck me as her "most unhuman" aspect [but with which I can relate, self-inflictedly]: Dr. Grandin doesn't understand most human social customs, so from a young age vowed to never enter into a romantic relationship.

She considers this entirely a waste of time, and lives to work.

Highly recommend Dr. Sacks many books/collections, may he RIP:

[I'm just a fleshbag]: Man Who Mistook Wife for Hat

[LGB / growing up]: Uncle Tungsten

[Parkinsonianisms]: Awakenings

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ProllyInfamousMay 2023

Uncle Tungsten is a fantastic book about youthful discovery, science and self.

Dr. Oliver Sacks is a fantastic writer with a bit of his own adversities.

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robocatApr 2022

https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=molecular+weight+caffeine “Caffeine/Molar mass 194.19 g/mol”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole_(unit) “The mole is defined as exactly 6.02214076×10²³ elementary entities”. 194.19 / 6.02214076e23 calculates one molecule is about 3.2246008e-22 g ~322 yoctogrammes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_prefix

“The Space Shuttle weighed 165,000 pounds empty. Its external tank weighed 78,100 pounds empty and its two solid rocket boosters weighed 185,000 pounds empty each. Each solid rocket booster held 1.1 million pounds of fuel. The external tank held 143,000 gallons of liquid oxygen (1,359,000 pounds) and 383,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen (226,000 pounds). The fuel weighed almost 20 times more than the Shuttle. At launch, the Shuttle, external tank, solid rocket boosters and all the fuel combined had a total weight of 4.4 million pounds. The Shuttle could also carry a 65,000 payload.”

Edit: that’s approximately 3e-25 kg per Caffiene molecule and I’m not a chemist, but I do enjoy captivating books about chemists/chemistry like Ignition[1], PiHKAL[2], Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood by Oliver Sacks[3].

Edit 2: From above I noticed 1 litre of liquid Hydrogen is unexpectedly light at 0.15604 kg and one litre of liquid Oxygen is similarly heavier at 2.517 kg - I hope you find more things to add that challenge our intuitions.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29006010

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30827112

[3] https://www.chemistryworld.com/review/uncle-tungsten-memorie...

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tokujinMar 2022

Uncle Tungsten by Oliver Sacks. I'm a chemist trying to turn physicist and the childish enthusiasm of little Oliver (he's around 11--13 in the book) for “the lovingly detailed, naturalistic, descriptive chemistry of the nineteenth century” makes me feel less remorseful about my choice.

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