Awake Yet?

Another night of fugue dreams about the classroom. Just before waking, I was trying to teach somebody (was it you?) everything I know about chemistry in one lesson. So I started off with atoms and molecules, then elements and compounds, heterogeneous mixtures and solutions, reaction stoichiometry and thermodynamics. I finished off with the hard stuff about complex materials that self replicate, alter their own composition, and generate new materials, thereby ensuring their persistence, unless perchance they do it wrong and get recycled. 

You probably know about atoms and molecules. You may not twig to the bit at the end. You should, though. You and I see it in the mirror every morning. I mean, it's us. True, we don't usually think of ourselves as aggregations of atoms because thought is a metaphenomenon at a much higher level of complexity than the atoms that generate it. 

What brought this on was an audiobook we recently listened to: "On a Farther Shore: the life and legacy of Rachel Carson" by William Souder. We heard that Rachel Carson's accessible prose unifies the study of living things with the environment as "ecology". She worked hard to make the hard stuff easy when it is so easy to make the easy stuff hard.

Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" was published in 1962 when I was in university. She died in 1964 just as I began my teaching career. (Not my fault she died. Not her fault I became a teacher.) Of course I knew about Silent Spring. Everybody knew. Rachel was a sensation. But what I knew would barely make an interesting paragraph.*  And since then, I have been too busy or lazy to find out more. You too? Silent Spring should be part seven of the owner's manual for the human body. How did we miss it?

 1. potty training
 2. being nice
 3. speaking
 4. reading and writing
 5. arithmetic
 6. the birds and the bees
 7. Silent Spring
 8. taking care of business
 9. showing the kids how it's done
10. passing the torch
11. walking on the beach
12. writing a blog if the urge strikes
13. recycling the atoms

Maybe we got distracted on #6 and then were in a rush to get to #8. We Didn't Have a Clue. In a better world nobody would get to skip #7 . 

* Now it appears that Rachel Carson had a clue. She wrote extensively about fallout from nuclear weapons testing, persistent pesticides, herbicides, and the looming climate emergency, all issues to which we were quite blind before she showed us where to look. She also wrote lyrically about the beauty of nature and our need to behave responsibly rather than mess it up. With Rachel's introduction, we have met the environment and it is us. Our poet and scientist personas merge. We look on curiously, amazed as the universe discovers itself through our eyes. (That's my one paragraph on Rachel Carson. How did I do?)

*******************

I anticipate your prognostication that this sesquipedalian writer will not cogitate copaseticly without an effulgence of inscrutable verbosity.
(I suppose you think I use too many big words to tell you about my little thoughts.) And I find no exculpatory counterarguments except my customary floccinaucinihilipilification. (No matter; I plead guilty as usual.) I have heard your hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia. (I sense your aversion to my big words.) So, to be well, you might look elsewhere for leisure reading. 

Yes but, in the interest of retaining a residual audience, (I'm not done with #12 and not in a hurry for #13), here's my New Year's project: I will read "Silent Spring" to learn some easy words about difficult things. I promise.

There. I told you. Now I have to do it.

Time to wake up. Come back whenever you need a nap or a chemistry lesson. More to tell and lots of nice short words will be waiting. If I relapse, just copy the offending word and paste it into Google search or DuckDuckGo.

**************

Thanks to Bing for helping me with the spelling of words like "potty". As the years go by I forget. Is it pottie or pottee or pawty or pahtea? So confusing and so many short words. I wish all the words were as memorable as hippopoto-monstro-sesquipedalio-phobia. That is one of a kind. Beautiful. Are you sure you don't like it? 

Anyway, with Rachel's assistance, I'm going to work at the short words. Promise.

*****************

Kicking Fossil Fuel Out of Industry: Just Have a Think, Jan 5, 2025