This web page is a tribute to the 1969 Time Life Pocket Book titled Matter. The book is beautifully illustrated and well organised into chapters that discuss the history of chemistry, the nature of gasses, liquids and solids, and the structure of the nucleus. All the topics are presented clearly in a way that can be enjoyed at any age or educational level. I pored over the book as a 12 year old, and as an adult 56 years later I think it still reads well.

What particularly fascinated me as a youngster was the middle part of the book where all the elements are presented in a gallery of colour-coded groups, and each element has a picture and short description of its properties and uses. Who knew there was a metal called Niobium that was used in jet engines? Who had seen the ingredients of ordinary salt: a soft dangerous metal combined with a poisonous yellow gas? And what were those strange metals called "rare earths" that seemed to exist in their own island in the middle of the periodic table? I pondered over the fact that everything in the universe is made of these elements, and I was fascinated by the tantalising patterns across the periods and groups.

See also: Greg's Element Collection