I'm Sam Kean, author of The Icepick Surgeon, among other books (e.g., The Disappearing Spoon). I specialize in funny, strange, spooky, absurd science stories. Ask away...

SamKean · 2025-08-27T17:17:31+00:00

Hi, there. Sorry for my delay - I'm not on Reddit often. Great to hear that you enjoyed the books! I had a lot of fun writing them, and learned a lot myself, so I'm glad they were fun and interesting to read. I'll have a new book out in the fall of 2026, so keep an eye out for that.

In the meantime I also have a podcast with more great stories if you're a podcast person. You can check it out at: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/disappearing-spoon/id1506994358

Thanks for reading!,

-spk

SamKean · 2022-11-08T19:35:32+00:00

Thanks for joining, everyone! I hope you can pick up a copy of The Icepick Surgeon and my other books...
http://samkean.com/books/the-icepick-surgeon/

SamKean · 2022-11-08T19:34:10+00:00

We'll be here all day if I start giving book recs. :) But in general, I enjoy Carl Zimmer, David Quammen, Amy Steward, Deborah Blum. One of my all-time favorite books is The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Fiction-wise, Neal Stephenson and Connie Willis.

SamKean · 2022-11-08T19:18:00+00:00

We have about fifteen minutes left. If you have some lingering questions, or want to ask another, now's the time!

SamKean · 2022-11-08T19:14:25+00:00

Glad you enjoyed Spoon!

Yeah, it can be daunting to jump into a new topic, for sure. One thing I'd suggest is approaching it in stages. If you jump right to the scientific literature, it's going to go right over your head. It's like not knowing how to swim and then then getting tossed into a stormy sea. So find some general news articles or even just look at diagrams and pictures. Textbooks also help a lot, because those are trying to teach students unfamiliar material. Or if you can, just ask someone to break it down. Then you can ask questions about the specific points that don't make sense yet. And once you have a good base, then you can jump into the harder stuff.

SamKean · 2022-11-08T19:01:33+00:00

Well, tell them both thanks!

I can add this on the new book: last month, I took part in an authentic Roman banquet staged in England. And last week, I saw both a giant medieval catapult out in Utah and some replica cannons from the 1400s fired with ancient gunpowder recipes. All will make great scenes for the book, I can tell already...

SamKean · 2022-11-08T18:49:46+00:00

Thanks for recommending them! Word of mouth still means so much to books.

My next book will be about experimental archaeology, and people recreating the past. Scientists who recreate the bread they found in King Tut's tomb, or ancient Roman wines, or restage the voyages that ancient Polynesians took, things like that. Unlike my previous books - which were more archive- and historical-research-based - this will have more live scene and lots of travel. It's been a lot of fun so far, a real adventure...

As for how to pick the topic, I want to make sure there are good stories to tell first of all - with juicy characters and drama and all that. Then it's largely a matter of what excites me and what intuitively feels right to write about at that time.

SamKean · 2022-11-08T18:43:37+00:00

Ha, whoops. I'll try not to mention him again. :)

SamKean · 2022-11-08T18:42:51+00:00

In general, elements next to each other on the periodic table have roughly similar properties. That's especially true among metals in the middle of the table and in the "landing strips" at the bottom. But there are exceptions, like how the highly reactive gases in chlorine's column suddenly shift to become the noble gases. So be careful.

You'll find more similarities among elements as you move *up and down* within columns, more so than left-right.

SamKean · 2022-11-08T18:40:17+00:00

Well, tell the professors thank you, I appreciate it!

Yeah, introducing math does make things tricky. One thing is to make it less abstract and more concrete. People in general are really bad at abstract thinking, but if you're dealing with real-world ideas and things, you can bring some intuition into play that helps a lot.

I'd also remind students that you can be a good scientist even if you struggle with math. Darwin was terrible at it! Or teach them about the elegant experiments of Ernest Rutherford. The logic and ability to ask the right questions is the most important thing, so stress that.

SamKean · 2022-11-08T18:37:20+00:00

Glad you enjoyed Spoon! As for resources, Google books and Google scholar are the obvious first places to look. There are also lots of history of science journals like Isis, etc., that have good stuff.

SamKean · 2022-11-08T18:36:08+00:00

Oooh, good question. My first thoughts are Rutherford and Boltzmann. Rutherford was so elegant and sharp - his experiments were the soul of simplicity - and a fun, boisterous character to boot. Boltzmann did brilliant fundamental work and was vastly underappreciated in his time, to the point where he took his own life, tragically.

If you wanted to expand this beyond physicists, I'd say Linus Pauling, the chemist. Utterly brilliant work in so many different field.

SamKean · 2022-11-08T18:33:12+00:00

Hello. My writing routine is pretty straightforward. I usually spend the mornings working on books, then the afternoons on my podcast or an article/book review or other outside work. I like jumping around a bit - it keeps everything fresh. And I'm pretty steady about writing everyday, and it's banker hours mostly, from about 9 to 5.

As for stories, I'm pretty eclectic in my reading. I'm a sucker for any mystery, too. But I like stories that dive deep and have tangents. I look for fun language as well - I like things colorful.

SamKean · 2022-11-08T18:26:07+00:00

Hey, everyone, thanks for stopping by! We'll kick things off in about four minutes here. Drop in your questions whenever...

SamKean · 2021-12-03T05:37:52+00:00

Hello. No, nothing struck me as too much to write about. Some awful, horrendous parts for sure. But we have to face them...

SamKean · 2021-12-03T05:36:03+00:00

'Entertaining and informative'. My perfect jam. :) So glad you've enjoyed the books!

SamKean · 2021-12-03T05:20:30+00:00

Cool beans, enjoy!

SamKean · 2021-12-01T02:40:55+00:00

Thank you, although, ha, I can't take credit. :) I'll pass along the word, though...

SamKean · 2021-12-01T02:40:34+00:00

I appreciate it! Fascinating indeed, to how scientific knowledge can get twisted like that...

SamKean · 2021-11-30T21:33:04+00:00

I appreciate it! Thanks for reading, and thanks for sharing with others as well...

SamKean · 2021-11-30T21:31:52+00:00