Chemical Education Today
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Book & Media Reviews
Hydrogen: The Essential Element
by John S. Rigden
Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 2002. 280 pp.
ISBN 0674007387. $28
reviewed by A. Truman Schwartz
As all readers of this review certainly know, hydrogen
was the first element formed in the big bang. It remains by
far the most abundant element in the universe. Moreover,
because of its simplicity, the hydrogen atom has been a test
case for many of the theories and techniques of modern
physical science. In 23 short chapters, John Rigden sum-
marizes some of the properties of the element and various
efforts made to understand and explain both hydrogen in
particular and matter in general. Topics, which are pre-
sented in more or less chronological order, include Prout’s
hypothesis, the visible spectrum of hydrogen, the Bohr
model of the hydrogen atom, the fine-structure constant,
quantum mechanics, isotopes of hydrogen, nuclear magnetic
resonance, electron and nuclear spin, quantum electrody-
namics, deuterium abundance and cosmology, antimatter,
and Bose–Einstein condensates.
These chapters clearly demonstrate that hydrogen is an
effective vehicle for presenting a good deal of modern physics.
Not surprisingly, the choice of topics reflects the professional
interests of the author, a former physics professor who is cur-
rently Director of Special Projects at the American Institute
of Physics. Rigden’s failure to expand into the realm of chem-
istry is this reviewer’s only quarrel with an otherwise excel-
36 Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 81 No. 1 January 2004
Jeffrey Kovac
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996-1600
lent book. For example, there is no discussion of the chemi-
cal properties of hydrogen and its important role in the
Chemical Revolution of the late 18th century. Similarly, the
molecular structure of dihydrogen gets only a cursory treat-
ment. And important applied topics such as hydrogen bombs,
hy-drogen fuel cells, and the hydrogen economy are omit-
ted.
Unfortunately, when quasi-chemical topics are intro-
duced, they sometimes come with errors. For example, the
treatment of atomic weights on page 15 is inaccurate and
misleading, and the discussion of radioactive decay is too
oversimplified to be of much value. The presentation of
physical constants in the Bohr energy expression (p 38) gives
numerical values but is guilty of the cardinal sin of not re-
porting units. And in Figure 8.2, the vertical axis is incor-
rectly labeled as the absolute value of the wave function
squared, ψ2. It should be the radial distribution function,
4πr 2ψ2.
In spite of these chemist’s cavils, I found Hydrogen to
be engaging and informative. The book is part history of
science and part primer on fundamental physical concepts.
Moreover, it includes interesting vignettes about the scien-
tists involved in these various discoveries, especially I. I. Rabi,
the subject of an earlier biography by the same author. The
current text also reveals something about the methods of
science. The book is well written with clear explanations and
good references. It should be accessible to an educated lay
audience and of particular interest to chemists.
A. Truman Schwartz is in the Department of Chem-
istr y, Macalester College, Saint Paul, MN 55105;
schwartz@macalester.edu
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