The Typical Elements

“The typical elements provides a comprehensive survey of the non-transition elements. These elements, for a time thought to be the less-interesting members of the periodic table, are now being shown to have an extremely varied and fascinating chemistry. This book starts with a discussion of the electron distribution in atoms, which leads to an understanding of how the periodic table is built up. This first section also contains a general description of the types of chemical bond found in inorganic compounds. The rest of the book is a systematic survey of the non-transition elements, first relating the electronic properties of the elements to their physical properties, and then discussing the occurrence, extraction and detailed chemical properties of the elements of each group, relating all this to similar features of other groups. The book concludes with useful survey of non-aqueous solvents. The transition elements will be covered in two other volumes in the Penguin library of physical sciences, one dealing with complexes and the first-row transition elements, the other with the heavy transition elements, the lanthanides and the actinides.”- Publisher.