Category: Science Poetry

The classic “Uncleftish Beholding,”
A new chem-ken constantly molding:
Terms retro-translated;
In prose, aggregated.
New insights: abiding, unfolding.  

In this particularly busy season, the second of my two Summer 2024 posts will also build on a non-Twitter poem that relates to a recent conference presentation. (After this post, I’ll pause until the new school year begins, to resume a regular posting routine.)   

I gave a talk last week at the 2024 Biennial Conference on Chemical Education, held this year in Lexington, Kentucky.  In this case, one major focus of my presentation was the potential of author Poul Anderson’s renowned essay “Uncleftish Beholding” for helping students to look beyond memorized chemistry vocabulary to the concepts underneath. 

Given the number of quotes I’ll use here, I’ll double my typical goal and aim to keep things under 560 words, starting now.     

The classic “Uncleftish Beholding,” /
A new chem-ken constantly molding…

Poul Anderson (1926-2001) was an award-winning science fiction writer whose work explored many aspects of the overlap of science and languages.  “Uncleftish Beholding,” from his book All One Universe, is an inventive essay that explains atomic theory with a vocabulary that uses only Germanic-root terms, avoiding words originally from other languages.  [Within this rule, “atomic” (since it is derived from Greek and Latin) must become “uncleftish,” while “theory” (derived from Greek) similarly becomes “beholding.”]   

This set of rules refocuses attention on the meanings of the underlying concepts, “constantly molding” a “new chem-ken”: yielding new insights into and enhanced understanding of chemistry.

Terms retro-translated; /
In prose, aggregated.

Here is a paragraph from Anderson’s essay, with my interpretations of the pertinent concepts italicized in brackets:

“The worldken of this behaving [the study of this behavior], in all its manifold ways [in all its complexity], is called minglingken [chemistry]. Minglingers [chemists] have found that as the uncleftish tale of the firststuffs (that is, the tale of firststuffs in their kernels) waxes [as the atomic numbers of the elements increase], after a while they begin to show ownships not unlike those of others that went before them [periodic behavior can ultimately be observed among them]. So, for a showdeal [for an example], stonestuff (3), glasswortstuff (11), potashstuff (19), redstuff (37), and bluegraystuff (55) can each link with only one uncleft of waterstuff [lithium (atomic number 3), sodium (atomic number 11), potassium (atomic number 19), rubidium (atomic number 37), and cesium (atomic number 55) each bond to only one hydrogen atom], while coalstuff (6), flintstuff (14), germanstuff (32), tin (50), and lead (82) can each link with four [carbon (atomic number 6), silicon (atomic number 14), germanium (atomic number 32), tin (atomic number 50), and lead (atomic number 82) can each bond to four hydrogen atoms].  This is readily seen [this periodic behavior can be observed] when all are set forth in what is called the roundaround board of the firststuffs [the Periodic Table of the Elements].”

-From Poul Anderson’s “Uncleftish Beholding”

In Lines 3-4, I characterize Anderson’s essay as “terms retro-translated; in prose, aggregated.”  Reading the piece requires intentional concentration, as the mesmerizing, old-fashioned-seeming terms accumulate.  (On a comparable note, in preparing my talk, I was fascinated to find Douglas Hofstadter’s Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language, which includes a chapter analyzing and extending Anderson’s piece. For instance, Hofstadter discusses Einstein’s theories as the work of “old One Stone,” taking Anderson’s vocabulary constraint and adding in a new one: of using all-one-syllable words!  It was a similarly rewarding reading experience.)

New insights: abiding, unfolding.

This academic year was the first time I deliberately taught “Uncleftish Beholding” in a class, sharing it– after much background information– with an upper-level chemistry lecture course.  I was impressed with how enthusiastically students responded to the unusual exercise; their discussion and the resulting coursework had been the substance of my BCCE talk.  

The title of this post takes the phrase “holding patterns” as its inspiration, but it also can be read as observing known concepts in unusual contexts: i.e., the steps necessary to translate this essay into modern chemistry vocabulary.  This duality lines up well with the limerick’s final line; Anderson’s essay is continually both a reminder of “abiding” scientific knowledge and an “unfolding” inspiration.

STEM texts can overemphasize the lingo,
And walls imposing build, unseen, in limbo.  
We need other pages– stat!  
Note from the stage is that 
“Someone oughta open up a window…”  

The summer always passes rapidly, but this year has seen a dramatically faster pace than the last few.  I wanted to at least use this space to reflect on the conferences I have had and will have the chance to attend this year, and thus record at least two summer 2024 posts before classes begin again next month.

My first conference ended earlier this week; set in Philadelphia at the phenomenally interesting Science History Institute, the meeting had focused on the importance of storytelling in teaching science.  

This non-Twitter poem builds toward a famous line from a famously Philadelphia-set musical, the historical drama 1776, in highlighting some of the themes I saw as a chemistry educator attending the conference.  (The post title is intended both to note the interdisciplinarity of the conference and to imply the importance of “reading,” or story, in doing so!)      

“STEM texts can overemphasize the lingo, /
And walls imposing build, unbid, in limbo.” 

A common theme in this space is that of jargon, the specialized “lingo” necessary for scientists to communicate efficiently.  Introductory STEM textbooks often involve a tremendous amount of challenging vocabulary without (in my experience) convincingly illustrating to students that they are doing so.  This can result in unintended but challenging barriers as one is learning: “walls imposing buil[t], unbid, in limbo.”    

“We need other pages– stat!”

The phrase “other pages” stands in for novel approaches: here, the use of narrative storytelling exploring the history and concepts of STEM, as discussed at the meeting.  The use of “stat!” notes the importance of such creativity (and sets up Line 4’s rhyme!).  

“Note from the stage is that /
‘Someone oughta open up a window…’”     

The stage musical 1776 is set during the meetings of the Second Continental Congress leading up to the Declaration of Independence.  The opening number is entitled “Sit Down, John,” as a generally frustrated Congress exhorts John Adams to be silent.  Several lines comment on the heat wave ongoing in the city and the hope for some relief, as with: “Someone oughta open up a window!”  (Lines 1, 2, and 5 in this limerick build on the memorable rhythm of this lyric.)  

I’ve seen jargon characterized as a potential wall before, and it’s been intriguing to consider routes contending with such a barrier, from turning it onto its side to convert it into a bridge to (here) “opening up a window” within that wall.  Borrowing that “note from the stage” seems apt, as interdisciplinary conversations can allow glimpses of other fields… and provide some fresh air.

“Concluding: the fifth iteration
Through writing and STEM combination;  
The routine completing, 
In latest repeating 
Of chem-concept verse calibration.”  

The 30 April 2023 Twitter limerick marked the end of my fifth attempt at the National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) process; this post likewise draws the latest round of poem-translating essays to a close, for the 2023-2024 academic year.

“Concluding: the fifth iteration /
Through writing and STEM combination…”  

As noted above, NaPoWriMo 2023 was my own fifth attempt (“fifth iteration”) at this popular poetry-writing routine.  These brief essays have now been welcome distractions and exercises through several unusual academic years.  The challenge of writing about STEM concepts in a way that is largely jargon-free and thus (ideally!) more fun for general readers is one that remains rewarding, several years into maintaining this website.       

“The routine completing, /
In latest repeating /
Of chem-concept verse calibration.”  

I am generally in awe of the scientists and doctors who manage significant creative writing projects in the midst of their everyday careers.  For instance, Richard Selzer’s described habit of consistently waking at 1 a.m. to write until 3 a.m., while maintaining his “day job” as a physician, has stayed with me for decades, ever since I encountered his eloquent essays in an undergraduate course.  

For my own part, while I’ll never be able to aspire to two overnight hours per day, I find that one morning of creative writing once a week can still make a tremendous difference, and the “chem-concept verse calibration” of the previous April is what makes it possible, at this reasonable scale. The 280-word limit for these posts, inspired by Twitter’s former 280-character constraint, works well for my own writing routine during an academic year.  

Here at the end of Spring 2024, I have just finished (as of yesterday!) a new set of Twitter poems to revisit in the next academic year; I hope to also take some time during mid-summer to write some longer pieces in this space.  For the near future, though, I will pause posts here for a few weeks, noting and celebrating the end of a challenging spring semester.  

“The stress of week’s finals: diminishing;
The projects, exams, and tests: finishing;
Semester: diminuent;
The summer: soon-imminent;
Commencement: approaching, distinguishing.”

The 29 April 2023 Twitter limerick is, most likely, self-explanatory.  However, it is worth a few additional lines as the Spring 2024 semester likewise draws to a close.

“The stress of week’s finals: diminishing; / 
The projects, exams, and tests: finishing…”

In the routine I’ve now used for several years with this website, the thirty poems generated for each April’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) match up reasonably well with the two fifteen-week semesters of the “next” academic year, making them logical topics to revisit in these brief essays. For instance, during this 2023-2024 academic year, I was glad to revisit the first half of the April 2023 NaPoWriMo sequence during Autumn 2023, and now to (nearly) finish the second half of the April 2023 sequence during Spring 2024. 

We are currently in Finals Week for Spring 2024.  While it is a hectic time, we’ve just passed the halfway point, so we are drawing near to the sense of “diminishing” stress that is commemorated in this poem.    

“Semester: diminuent; /
The summer: soon-imminent; /
Commencement: approaching, distinguishing.”

The hours of the semester are dwindling; the academic summer break (even if it seems early compared to the seasonal calendar!) is imminent.  The graduation ceremony– always a welcome, momentous occasion– is on the horizon. 

In writing, wrest wit from the chatter
As concepts reorder, blend, scatter.
The plotline is changing
With themes rearranging:
A book’s conservation of matter. 

This specific poem was not posted on Twitter first.  It was aligned along themes similar to those of the poems posted during National Library Week 2023, which I’ve been revisiting lately.  However, it had also seemed like it would benefit from more immediate context, so I postponed it entirely until this spring.

This limerick takes its inspiration from another famous writer’s quote in highlighting another chemistry theme.  Cormac McCarthy, who won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, among many others, stated in a 1992 interview: “Books are made out of books.”    

In writing, wrest wit from the chatter /
As concepts reorder, blend, scatter…

The first few lines acknowledge the combinatorial thought processes that accompany creative efforts.  I am personally most familiar with scientific journal articles.  These begin with discussions of previous literature, placing the original experimental work that will be discussed in the context of what’s come before. 

In starting to teach non-chem courses, moreover, it has been fascinating to learn more about how such efforts are widespread: both historically apparent, through such artifacts as commonplace books and florigelia, as well as currently evident, in the daily routines of artists across many fields.  I’ve also written previously about the power of juxtaposition: how new ideas emerge from considering “chance encounters” of past works or existing ideas.  

Thus, writing “reorders, blends, scatters” work that has come before, to ultimately generate new ideas and expressions, “wrest[ing] wit from the chatter.”     

The plotline is changing /
With themes rearranging: /
A book’s conservation of matter. 

Encountering McCarthy’s quote last spring, I was reminded of the themes communicated by a balanced chemical reaction. 

Part of Dalton’s atomic theory (a key idea in chemistry) is the statement that a balanced chemical reaction neither creates nor destroys matter, but instead rearranges it.  In a sample combustion reaction, for instance, none of the atoms in the reactant molecules of methane (CH₄) and oxygen (O₂) are lost. They are instead rearranged into the products of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and water (H₂O), shown below.

CH₄ + 2 O₂ → CO₂ + 2 H₂O

Likewise, as exemplified in the statement that “books are made of books,” rearrangement and conservation are evident in other combinatorially creative processes.    

“Remarkable, notable quality–
A book’s fundamental centrality
In reading’s conjunctions
Of path and state functions:
Safe travels and home’s hospitality.”

The next Twitter limerick continued the focus of National Library Week 2023; it was posted on 28 April 2023.  As with the past few poems, it highlighted a specific writer’s quote that overlapped in an interesting way with a chemistry concept.  

Here, the original quote was from renowned author Anna Quindlen, in How Reading Changed My Life: “Books are the plane, and the train, and the road.  They are the destination, and the journey.  They are home.”  

“Remarkable, notable quality– /
A book’s fundamental centrality /
In reading’s conjunctions /
Of path and state functions…”

I return often, on this website, to the metaphorical values of state and path functions. State functions, like altitude, are mathematical functions that can be evaluated simply by knowing the initial and final state of the system (the starting and ending points); path functions, like distance, require knowledge about the specific path (what’s in between). 

Different aspects of these mathematical approaches are helpful to chemists in different ways.  For instance, the value of the change in a state function for a cyclic process can be set equal to zero, since the initial and final states are the same. The system ends up right where it started, simplifying several resulting mathematical applications.  (With respect to this last note and its overlap with this quote and poem, I also always think of another famous literary quote, G. K. Chesterton’s statement that “[t]here are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there.  The other is to walk round the whole world until we come back to the same place.”)   

Anna Quindlen’s quote evokes aspects of both path and state functions: celebrating the immense and wide-ranging values of books, naming their abilities to both transport and comfort.  Readers take epic journeys from the comfort of their living rooms; they also bring familiar narratives along when they face challenges or travels of their own.  A book accompanies the reader along their path; it also welcomes them home. Reading is a “conjunction of path and state function.”     

“Safe travels and home’s hospitality.”   

The last line summed up the poem’s theme, juxtaposing guided adventure and welcome return.

“Consider task seeming-inordinate:
Turn chaos to narrative order.  Yet,
Steps infinitesimal
Will sum to path epical:
Illumined reaction coordinate.”

The 27 April 2023 Twitter limerick again fell during National Library Week; as with the previous post, it highlighted a famous quote about writing, relating it to the context of a chemistry theme.  This particular quote was from E. L. Doctorow, award-winning author of Ragtime and many other novels.  

Doctorow said: “Writing is like driving at night in the fog.  You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”  (I have seen a few different phrasings of this quote over time, but the themes and central images remain the same.)

“Consider task seeming-inordinate: /
Turn chaos to narrative order….”

In writing, one processes initially-chaotic information (whether it takes the form of quantitative data or qualitative events) into some kind of narrative order. 

This can seem a daunting (“inordinate”) task, regardless of whether the goal is a book, an essay, a journal article, etc.

“…Yet, /
Steps infinitesimal /
Will sum to path epical…”

This portion of the poem directly references Doctorow’s quote.  A writer doesn’t have to produce an entire essay, article, or book every time they sit down.  The accumulation of the accomplishments of a regular routine (of the daily “steps infinitesimal,” over time) will ultimately “sum to path epical,” adding up to the total work in question.  Using Doctorow’s imagery, the headlights might only illuminate a small stretch of the road ahead, but that is enough for one day’s progress to contribute to the course of an epic journey.  

“Illumined reaction coordinate.”

In chemistry terms, this quote suggests the image of a reaction coordinate: a graphical depiction of the energetic costs and benefits incurred as reactants progress toward products over time.  A reaction coordinate looks very much like a journey through mountains and valleys, perhaps illuminated a few feet (or meters!) at a time.  

Routine is one of the most common suggestions or discussions for aspiring and established writers, but it can be remarkably hard to establish in the hubbub of everyday life.  Doctorow’s quote highlights the value of finding even a few moments per day to make some progress.  

Likewise, the balance between the small distance accomplished a few steps at a time and the picture created by the overall path is one that echoes in both writing and chemistry. 

“Analytic acts: retrosynthetic,
Deconstructive towards efforts mimetic.
Then, new thoughts’ connections,
In forward directions,
Yield efforts most novel-poetic.”

The National Library Week routine continued with the 26 Aprll 2023 post. Rather than reference a specific book, this particular limerick commemorated an insightful quote about writing from renowned author and educator Toni Morrison: “Teaching is about taking things apart; writing is about putting things together.”  

Here, the poem noted some analogies between the different techniques used in retrospective analysis and in creative work, in both literature and chemistry.  

“Analytic acts: retrosynthetic, /
Deconstructive towards efforts mimetic…”

Toni Morrison lived from 1933 to 2019; she won countless awards for her writing, including the Nobel Prize for Literature and a Pulitzer Prize.  She was also on the faculty of multiple colleges, including Princeton University.  

The first half of her quote (“Teaching is about taking things apart”) highlights the role of analysis in learning about literature: deconstructing a given work to better understand how the component elements combine.  

Encountering this quote for the first time, I was reminded of retrosynthesis in organic chemistry: working backwards from a target molecule to its starting materials.  

The goal in both cases would ultimately be completing an “effort mimetic”: a comparable creative endeavor that could be completed independently.   

“Then, new thoughts’ connections, /
In forward directions, /
Yield efforts most novel-poetic.”

The completion of Morrison’s memorable quote, (“…writing is about putting things together”)  is summarized in the latter three lines of this limerick.  

Once someone has had a chance to better understand a written work by taking it apart, they will also have more knowledge and a larger skill set with respect to “new thoughts’ connections / in forward direction”: in other words, writing something of their own. 

Similarly, a chemist who considers the retrosynthesis of a target molecule all the way back to accessible starting materials does so to ultimately devise a feasible synthesis (a set of “forward” reactions) to that target.  

“Novel-poetic” is a closing phrase that both summarizes two common types of creative writing endeavors (novels and poetry) and highlights the idea of a “novel synthesis” in chemistry: one that breaks new ground toward an important target molecule for the first time. 

“A narrative’s long-lived themes, holding;  
An interest in STEM concepts, molding:
A landmark of fiction 
Defies circumscription 
With wrinkle in time still unfolding.”

The 25 April 2023 limerick commemorated one of my favorite books, Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.  Like the previous poem, it was posted during National Library Week 2023.  

“A narrative’s long-lived themes, holding; /
An interest in STEM concepts, molding…”

A Wrinkle in Time is the book I’ve probably read the most over my lifetime.  I’ve encountered it multiple times in both classroom assignments and leisure reading, always engrossed by its blend of literature, science, and philosophy, along with its compelling narrative (to which the word constraints of this post cannot do justice!). 

I’ve written before in this site about its focus on poetic structure, in particular, and the echoes of those ideas in my own writing routines.  Reading the book for the first time in elementary school was the first time I’d encountered the scientific terms and concepts shared in its pages, some of which have echoed through the decades since.  

The book both “[holds] long-lived themes” and has, for me, “[molded] an interest in STEM concepts.”  

“A landmark of fiction /
Defies circumscription /
With wrinkle in time still unfolding.”

The book is beloved by a wide audience; it won the Newbery Medal in 1963 and is constantly held up as a “landmark of fiction.”  The novel defies neat categorization: it has elements of science fiction and fantasy, but its resonance crosses many disciplinary lines.

In an interview with Horn Book twenty years after A Wrinkle in Time’s publication, L’Engle famously said: “I cannot possibly tell you how I came to write it. It was simply a book I had to write. I had no choice.  It was only after it was written that I realized what some of it meant.”  This balance between inspired breakthrough and retroactive recognition has likewise stayed with me, as an illustration of the creative process.  

“Some unit conversions are gen’rable
From temperature-title most ven’rable,
But data retention
In SI dimensions—
Kelvin 506— seems far less mem’rable.”

The next poem was posted on 24 April 2023 in honor of Right to Read Day, specifically. It kicked off a week wherein I aimed to highlight chemistry-adjacent themes from famous authors, in terms of their books or quotes about writing or reading.  This first limerick noted Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 in the context of a temperature conversion.  

“Some unit conversions are gen’rable /
From temperature-title most ven’rable…”

Dimensional analysis is a common skill developed in General Chemistry coursework.  It is often useful to quickly convert from one unit to another: for instance, to be able to express a volume in cubic meters or in liters, or to express a velocity in miles per hour or meters per second. These steps are called unit conversions.

Bradbury’s book is celebrated as a classic and was a focal point of 2023’s Right to Read Week.  The “temperature-title” is venerable.  

“But data retention
In SI dimensions—
Kelvin 506— seems far less mem’rable.”

The title of Fahrenheit 451 was based on the ignition temperature of paper, given the initial role of Bradbury’s protagonist as a “fireman”: in the novel’s dystopian future setting, one who burns books.  (The character refrains from that role over the course of the plot and resolves instead to help preserve literature.)

It is possible to generate temperature expressions using a wide range of units: “the unit conversions are gen’rable.”  Via these unit conversions, the temperature of 451 degrees Fahrenheit is equivalent to 506 Kelvin or to 233 degrees Celsius. 

However, as the poem notes, Bradbury’s famous title “seems far less memorable” when expressed on other scales, specifically the SI (International System) unit for temperature, which is the Kelvin, abbreviated as K.