Summary

Chapter 8: This chapter focuses on Emile Segrè and Linus Pauling. Both of whom were great scientists but also made significant mistakes that assured their infamy. Segrè initially dismissed the possibility of fission when it was proposed in a 1934 paper written by Ida Noddack. Later, he mistakenly misidentified the transuranic element neptunium as a fission product. Pauling figured out how quantum mechanics governs the chemical bonds between atoms before working on the question of DNA and attempting to determine its physical structure. Pauling proposed an incorrect model and insisted upon its accuracy, even when his errors were pointed out his errors. The correct structure of DNA was eventually found by other scientists, not Pauling.

Chapter 9: This chapter is about poisonous elements in a particular section of the table known as "poisoner's corridor" (152). Cadmium, a by-product of zinc mining, was dumped into the...