Gas man puts air under the microscope SIMON HUMPHREYS

We do it largely without thinking but life depends upon it. Given that we breathe roughly 20,000 times a day, with our lungs expelling half a litre of air with every breath, it is surprising how little attention we pay to the air around us.

Tracing the evolution of our atmosphere from its origins as a cloud of space gas 4.5 billion years ago, Sam Kean takes us on a grand tour of the periodic table, showing us how the universe was formed and has evolved over time to support life on Earth.

Along the way we see how humans have used their scientific ingenuity to discover, understand and utilise gases and also how, in recent decades, we have heated the planet, depleted the ozone layer and radically altered our atmosphere.

This is a fun book, full of anecdotes about heroic endeavours and extraordinary scientists, with digressions into such subjects as the development of lighting, hot-air ballooning and laughing gas, as well as more serious reflections on nuclear testing, anaesthetics and life on other planets.

If, like me, you paid scant attention during chemistry lessons at school, then Kean is the teacher you wish you’d had: genial, companionable and infectiously enthusiastic. He explains complicated things well.

He also has some occasionally irritating mannerisms and his language can be inappropriately casual at times.

However, that’s a minor quibble. This is an entertaining and accessible guide to the mysterious vapour of gases. Popular science at its best.