Could it be magic...? Chemical experiments are not only essential for teaching chemistry, they also fascinate the audience. This book is an excellent source of inspiration for every 'magic show' and classroom demonstration. In a very playful manner, the experiments described here open up the manifold, colourful, and sometimes ear-splitting world of chemistry. Ranging from unusual (but useful) properties of matter to the illustration of the greenhouse effect, this masterful chemist's 'cookbook' is highly suitable for preparing demonstrations in front of larger audiences. Building a bridge between science and the arts, every experiment is introduced by inspiring citations from prose and poetry, which makes reading and experimenting equally enjoyable.

'The remarkable achievement of Herbert Roesky's and Klaus Möckel's book is the linkage it achieves between the world of the human spirit, expressed in literature and historical continuity, and the art of chemical demonstration. One expects Goethe to move freely in the pages of 'Chemical Couriosities', but Whitman, Nietzsche, Thomas Mann, Salvador Dali, Montaigne and the Prophet Jeremiah! ... The chemical and literary strands of this book are so ably intertwined.' Roald Hoffmann