1. R&R-Chemistry
R&R-Chemistry by Andrew Guthrie-Dow
I feel in an academic mood today, which is not like me, so unless I’m coming-down with something, I’m going to “do” chemistry seriously and with respect, at least that’s the current plan. Let’s first “attack” the subject from a historical perspective. The whole world around us is made-up of chemicals; rocks, trees, the air we breathe, and also us. However, it’s only been in the last few centuries, and in particular the nineteenth, that (in the main part) we’ve understood them deeply from a scientific stand-point – atoms, molecules, compounds, reactions etc. In fact, chemistry these days is often seen as a “done-deal”, a subject with few if any surprises left, perhaps with the exception of bio-chemistry.
This is a bit sad as I quite like the idea of alchemists in the middle-ages, hidden away in their basements trying to convert base metals to gold or find the elixir-of-life. Lack-of-success is never a deterrent to the committed, so it was only with modern insights that these pursuits faded-away. There were spin-off successes however; the discovery of phosphorous from boiling-off urine (sounds fun), and of all things, porcelain in the west. This was discovered by Johann-Friedrich-Böttger and Ehrenfried-Walther-von-Tschirnhaus (two names to conjure with), alchemists to August-II of=Saxony (Augustus-the-Strong). OK, that’s enough history.
His modus-operandi was to get what he needed, and only what he needed, from the bottom level and move it to the top and work there, all within grabbing distance of his money box. In his current mission this consisted of the “Successful Bears…” book and his tablet. He would reference the book before spending many minutes scouring the internet. Why this self-help book amongst all his others, many of them classics, we wondered (e.g. “How to Make Friends and Influence People”, “Rocket-Surgery for Bears”, and the slightly worrying “One Hundred Legal and Illegal Ways to Make Money”.
After a week of intense activity Bear made an announcement – “I’m expecting an important package from the US” (there was always a whiff of pomposity when Bear announced things). “I’ll explain everything when it arrives, and I think you’ll be impressed”. There was no point in trying to pre-empt this; experience dictated we just had to wait. After another week there was a knock on the door, and the man from FedEx handed us the package. It was the size and shape of a pizza – was Bear going to change his diet and go all American? Of course not.
Before opening the package Bear made a short speech. “Fulfilling everyone’s potential requires not only success (financial or otherwise), but character”. “That’s why I’ve been working to improve my moral dimension- ethics, right-and-wrong etc.”. This was a somewhat surprising announcement from Bear as he never seemed to be in the slightest worried by this in the past. “In my extensive research I found I could do this in two different ways”.
“Firstly, I could change the way I think – learn to consider the moral dimension alongside the financial one in decision making”. “But apparently this takes considerable time and effort, resources we are all short of”. “So, I decided on the second approach – automation”. At this point Bear began unwrapping the package while he spoke. “That’s why I’ve decided to buy a Moral-Compass from the Whammo novelty-company (giant size, all American, designed in Independence-Missouri, manufactured in China)”.
He then freed the compass from its remaining packaging and admired it. “I’m not quite sure how it works, but it comes with full instructions, so when I need to think about these matters I’m fully covered”. What could we do? Impressed would be too soft a description of how we felt about our bear’s problem-solving ability. The Bear was certainly going places, but which ones did slightly concern us.