Tag: biography

Creative, complex education, /
Socratic in STEM information /
With goals pedagogic  /
Through mode dialogic: /
The art of a chem conversation.  

This (non-NaPoWriMo) poem is inspired by a biography I encountered earlier this autumn: that of Jane Haldimand Marcet (1769-1858), who wrote a landmark chemistry textbook, Conversations on Chemistry.  First published in the early 1800s, the book was used throughout the century and inspired several generations of aspiring scientists.    

“Creative, complex education, / 
Socratic in STEM information…”

Jane Marcet’s 1806 work was entitled Conversations on Chemistry: In Which The Elements of That Science Are Familiarly Explained and Illustrated by Experiments.  

In the book, a teacher named Mrs. Bryant works through several complex chemistry concepts with her two students, Emily and Caroline.  Due to the question-and-answer format (“Socratic in STEM information”), the presentation is quite readable, even centuries on.  

I enjoyed this frank and clarifying acknowledgement of the way changing definitions can frustrate students; here, Caroline is first thinking of “elements” as only the classical four:  

CAROLINE: “Yes; I know that all bodies are composed of fire, air, earth, and water; I learnt that many years ago.”  

MRS. B.  “But you must now endeavour to forget it. I have already informed you what a great change chemistry has undergone since it has become a regular science. Within these thirty years especially, it has experienced an entire revolution, and it is now proved, that neither fire, air, earth, nor water, can be called elementary bodies. For an elementary body is one that has never been decomposed, that is to say, separated into other substances; and fire, air, earth, and water, are all of them susceptible of decomposition.”  

Quote from Jane Marcet’s Conversations on Chemistry

While this book was published a few decades before Dmitri Mendeleev’s periodic table (in 1869), the current understanding of “element,” as a substance that cannot be broken down into simpler substances, is evident in Mrs. Bryant’s discussion.

“With goals pedagogic /
Through mode dialogic…”

Marcet’s goal in writing her text was that it would teach chemistry to a wider audience, including female students and all students who would not have had access to formal education at the time (where traditional lectures would be the favored format).   

She was successful.  Her use of accessible language and familiar phenomena to describe science concepts was a ground-breaking step in science education.  Her chemistry textbook reached wide audiences and received multiple reprintings (although she was not credited as the author for the first several editions).  It was translated into several languages.  Seven years after Marcet’s death, the first lab-based science course taught to women in the United States of America (in 1865 in Boston) would use her book in its curriculum.                   

“The art of a chem conversation.”  

Marcet anticipated several trends in terms of today’s work in chemical education.  Current science communication efforts often build on exchanges wherein challenging points can be clarified through conversations (such as a co-hosted podcast or a social media video).  The idea of “flipping the classroom” aims to allow more interactive science learning, beyond lecture alone.    

***

Two notable asides, here:

First, although I had not heard of Marcet herself until this autumn, her life and work intersected with those of two names I knew quite well already.  Marcet was inspired to write her book after observing Sir Humphry Davy’s famous demonstrations and realizing that discussions afterwards were what helped her truly understand the underlying chemistry concepts.  Years later, Michael Faraday would begin his scientific career as one of Davy’s assistants at the Royal Institution, then ultimately contribute huge insights to the fields of chemistry, physics, and science education on his own.  Faraday had initially discovered his interest in electricity while working as an apprentice to a bookbinder… because one of the books that came into the shop happened to be Marcet’s text!   

Second, I found it fascinating that one of Marcet’s friends was Mary Somerville, likewise famous for writing a 19th-century text that engaged with its scientific subject matter in a creative way, building on accessible examples (On the Connection of the Physical Sciences).  Several clarifying illustrations and insights can be imagined in their conversations, as well. 

“Skies-organizingly,
Annie Jump Cannon, 
With skills astronomical, 
Science uplifts.  
Data-insighting;
Intensities, citing;
Observing and writing;
Most stellar, her gifts.”  

The next science-themed poem from the April 2024 collection was a rare “Twitter bio” from that month.  The 19 April 2024 poem focused on the career of Annie Jump Cannon (1863-1941), an astronomer at Harvard College Observatory who developed a system for classifying the stars. 

(Cannon was one of many gifted women scientists who worked as “Harvard computers” at the Observatory around the turn of the 20th century.  Dava Sobel’s superb book, The Glass Universe, is one of many that tells these astronomers’ stories in far greater detail than these brief posts can allow, and the following is only a summary.)      

“Skies-organizingly, /
Annie Jump Cannon, / 
With skills astronomical, / 
Science uplifts…”  

Annie Jump Cannon graduated in 1884 from Wellesley College, having studied astronomy and physics there.  In 1896, she was hired as a “computer” at the Harvard College Observatory, by the then-director Edward Pickering.  The observatory collected an immense amount of data, and help was needed to compile it. The expectation was that Cannon’s primary role would involve processing the existing data already collected by male astronomers (computing the answers to calculations suggested by their findings).   

However, Cannon soon made several advances as an independent scientist.  Building on her spectroscopic training, she devised an approach to classify stars in a more systematic way than in previous years, via their line spectra. [Line spectra are investigated across a range of scientific disciplines, including chemistry.  They are patterns of lines that reflect the quantized behavior of atoms: only certain energetic changes are allowed for electrons within atoms (this is a major idea discussed with quantum mechanics).  Since only certain energies are allowed, only certain wavelengths of light are correspondingly seen, causing these characteristic line patterns for each element.]   

Cannon’s skills were “astronomical” both in terms of disciplinary alignment and in the advances they allowed, as she advanced a new approach for organizing the stars in the sky.  

“Data-insighting;
Intensities, citing;
Observing and writing;
Most stellar, her gifts.”

The classification scheme that Cannon devised has been refined slightly but is still used today, linking the brightness of stars to their temperatures.  To repeat the poetic license of “astronomical” from above, her gifts were “stellar” twice over, with respect to both her subject matter and the acumen with which she completed her investigations.

“STEM verse: historic, 
Cross-disciplinary, as
Intriguing efforts will
Semaphores yield.  
Enduring case:
Coleridge, lectures attending 
From Davy, to find 
‘Stock of metaphors’ filled.”

The 6 April 2024 Twitter poem celebrated a famous interdisciplinary intersection of science and poetry, via the story of Humphry Davy and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.  

“STEM verse: historic, /
Cross-disciplinary, as /
Intriguing efforts will /
Semaphores yield.”

This near-double-dactylic verse built on the previous poem; the discussion of constructive interference as a metaphor for rewarding collaborative teaching reminded me of another interdisciplinary endeavor.  

As I’ve written about here before, Humphry Davy, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Wordsworth were contemporaries, working in the areas of chemistry and poetry in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.  

Davy isolated multiple elements and invented an arc lamp, among many other scientific achievements; notably, he often gave public lectures on insights, presenting scientific material to a general audience.  Coleridge and Wordsworth are two of the names most associated with the Romantic era, the beginning of which movement is often traced to the 1798 publication of their Lyrical Ballads.  (A fascinating sidenote in Davy’s biography is that he helped to facilitate the editing and publishing process for the second edition of this work in 1800, among other collaborative efforts.)  The cross-disciplinary conversations among Davy, Coleridge, and Wordsworth yielded rewarding insights and ideas, potentially viewed as signals across traditional disciplinary gaps: “semaphores,” figuratively.  

“Enduring case: /
Coleridge, lectures attending /
From Davy, to find /
‘Stock of metaphors’ filled.”

This poem celebrated the most famous quote that I am aware of in terms of the collaboration itself: Coleridge’s comment that he attended Davy’s public lectures on chemistry to build up his “stock of metaphors.”    

The overlap of science and literature is complex and fascinating, and these blog entries are glancing at best.  However, whenever I do use one of my own “stock of metaphors,” accumulated now over the past fifteen years of teaching (unbelievable!), this famous quote inevitably comes to mind. 

“Michaelis-Menten-ly,
Enzymes will catalyze.   
Key derivation from 
Briggs and Haldane:
[ES] defined with approach 
Quasi-steady-state.
Lineweaver-Burk yields a
Graphical gain.”

The 25 April 2022 poem was similar to the “aromaticity ode” from a few days prior, in that its primary aim was to compile a significant amount of information in a memorable way.  It was posted on “DNA Day,” so a biochemistry theme seemed particularly appropriate. 

The poem compiles several names and big-picture findings of several scientists who studied enzyme catalysis.    

“Michaelis-Menten-ly, /
Enzymes will catalyze.” 

Enzymes are biological catalysts, remarkable in their specificity and efficiency: they speed up reactions but are not consumed in these reactions.  Many enzyme-related reactions can be modeled via the Michaelis-Menten mechanism, a step-by-step depiction that biochemists use to understand the kinetics (rates) of enzyme-catalyzed reactions.  

In 1913, biomedical researchers Leonor Michaelis and Maud Menten proposed this important mechanism.  In these first few lines, their famous names are adapted into an adverb for use in this pseudo-double-dactyl poem.  

The mechanism can be seen at this link and rationalizes how an enzyme (abbreviated E) interacts with a substrate (abbreviated S) to ultimately yield a product (abbreviated P).        

“Key derivation from /
Briggs and Haldane:/
[ES] defined with approach / 
Quasi-steady-state…”

George Briggs and J.B.S. Haldane published their work on a subsequent investigation of Michaelis-Menten kinetics in 1925, involving an innovation regarding the enzyme-substrate complex (ES) formed as a reaction intermediate, noting that its concentration in solution (designated in the poem by the square brackets) stays relatively constant (“quasi-steady-state”).    

“Lineweaver-Burk yields a /
Graphical gain.” 

Hans Lineweaver and Dean Burk proposed a graphical analysis of the Michaelis-Menten mechanism in 1934.  This type of analysis allows efficient interpretation of some of the important rate-related data under investigation, which can be quickly ascertained via algebraic manipulation, yielding a “gain” of key kinetic parameters. 

The post title notes that all three pairs of names relate to models that are useful in understanding biochemical processes; it alludes to Maud Menten’s name, specifically, in doing so.

“Writer, physician, and 
Doctor Graham Travers:
Last role, pseudonymic, for
Margaret G. Todd.  
Term ‘isotopic,’ her 
Etymologic endeavor, 
Will clarify masses at odds.”

The 14 April 2022 Twitter biography poem alluded to some of the many STEM-related achievements of physician Margaret Todd (1859-1918), including a contribution to the disciplinary vocabulary of chemistry.  

“Writer, physician, and /
Doctor Graham Travers: /
Last role, pseudonymic, for /
Margaret G. Todd…”

Margaret Georgina Todd was a Scottish writer and doctor.  The first two lines seem somewhat redundant in describing her career (“physician and doctor”), but as the third and fourth lines note, “Graham Travers” was the pseudonym under which she wrote  her most famous book: Mona Maclean, Medical Student.   

“Term ‘isotopic,’ her 
Etymologic endeavor, 
Will clarify masses at odds.”

In the field of chemistry, Todd is known for proposing the term “isotope,” in a conversation with radiochemist Frederick Soddy.  

Soddy had been studying elemental forms that corresponded to the same entry on the Periodic Table of the Elements (PTE).  These species shared the same atomic number (number of protons) but were seen to behave chemically differently in some scenarios, which could be ultimately attributed due to their different mass numbers (number of protons plus number of neutrons).  Via collaborations with Ernest Rutherford, Soddy developed the concepts of nuclear reactions and radioactivity, proposing processes by which some of these intriguingly different chemical entities could decay into one another.        

Learning about this research, Todd suggested a new term (“etymologic endeavor”) with which to describe these interesting species. She proposed the word “isotope,” from the Greek for same (“iso”) and place (“topos”), since isotopes are located at the “same place” on the PTE: they are instances of the same element.  

At the macroscopic level, the behavior of isotopes explains why atomic weights (average atomic masses, represented by the numbers underneath the chemical symbols on the PTE) are not whole numbers: different isotopes are present on Earth in different “abundances,” ultimately resulting in fractional values for these average quantities.

“Unerring, preparing is 
James Andrew Harris: 
T’ward isotopes heavy, his
Labwork maintains.  
Methods intrepid for 
Element 104
Find rutherfordium,
Now to be named.”  

The 12 April 2022 post was a Twitter biography poem noting some of the accomplishments of James Andrew Harris (1932-2000), whose research was integral to the discovery of multiple new elements.  Harris was a Black chemist who faced discrimination in his own career before his significant achievements at what is now Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.  Throughout his career, he supported many African-American students in their pursuit of STEM coursework and research.    

“Unerring, preparing is /
James Andrew Harris: / 
T’ward isotopes heavy, his /
Labwork maintains…”  

James Andrew Harris was an outstanding nuclear scientist who led the Heavy Isotopes Production Group in the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory at UC Berkeley during the 1960s.  This lab group worked on synthesizing precursor species necessary for the bombardment experiments that would yield new elements.  Careful, meticulous preparation (i.e., “preparing” that was “unerring”) of the heavy-isotope precursors was necessary for the success of subsequent steps.  

“Methods intrepid for / 
Element 104 /
Find rutherfordium, /
Now to be named.”

This work ultimately led to the identification of two new elements, through the intrepid preparation methods of Harris’s team, followed by subsequent experiments and analyses by the research team led by Albert Ghiorso.  The elements in question had the atomic numbers 104 and 105 (meaning an element with 104 protons and an element with 105 protons, respectively).  Near the same period of time, a research team at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Russia also identified these two elements in the lab.  

Each lab group used their own names with each of the two elements, and it took many years for the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) to resolve this naming controversy.  The IUPAC is the worldwide authority for chemists in terms of standardized nomenclature and communication.  As recounted in the poem, the IUPAC decided that Element 104 would be known as rutherfordium, after Ernest Rutherford; further, that Element 105 would be known as dubnium, after the town of Dubna, which is where the JINR is located. 

(This detailed discussion process yielded new, consistent reference points for chemists… and a title for this post!)     

“Cogitate, calculate: 
Dame Kathleen Lonsdale,
Through X-ray spectroscopy,
Compound discerns.
Insight incipient: 
Hex-methyl-ation will 
Benzene’s geometry 
Flatly confirm.“

As a new year and new semester are now officially underway, I will return to the weekly routine of these posts.  The 11 April 2022 poem began the 2022 week of “Twitter biographies.”  The first was a pseudo-double-dactyl poem summarizing a key experimental insight in chemistry from Kathleen Lonsdale, who lived from 1903-1971.  

“Cogitate, calculate: /
Dame Kathleen Lonsdale, /
Through X-ray spectroscopy, /
Compound discerns…”

Dame Kathleen Lonsdale was the first woman elected as president of the International Union of Crystallography, in addition to many, many other honors.  

X-ray crystallography is a technique in which, by sending high-energy X-rays at a sample of a compound, a chemist can examine how those X-rays are scattered: a useful analogy might be inferring the shape of an object from the shadow it casts, although X-ray crystallography techniques are far more involved and exacting.  Many compounds’ structures have been discerned through this technique, generalized in the poem as “X-ray spectroscopy” (again, a less precise characterization than is ideal, this time for the sake of the meter).          

“Insight incipient: /
Hex-methyl-ation will / 
Benzene’s geometry /
Flatly confirm.”

The specific experiment commemorated in this poem was Lonsdale’s use of X-ray crystallography to determine the geometry of benzene, a compound which had interested chemists for many years.  Before this insight, it was known that a benzene molecule contained six carbon atoms and six hydrogen atoms and arranged these atoms cyclically, in a ring.  However, scientists had still disagreed for decades as to its planarity: was the ring flat?  (Did it have all of its carbon atoms in the same plane?)    

Lonsdale determined an answer to this question by analyzing a derivative of benzene called hexamethylbenzene, which has a methyl group (-CH₃) attached to each carbon in the benzene ring.  She noted that the central benzene ring had to be flat to account for the results seen via her X-ray crystallography experiment.  Thus, the geometry was “flatly confirm[ed]”: benzene was shown to be planar, via significant and convincing evidence.  

“Data-equatingly,
Katherine Johnson, 
As mathematician,
Will orbits apprise:
Gifts analytic and
Genius logistic
Facilitate NASA’s paths
To, through the skies.” 

The 18 April 2021 Twitter biography celebrated the life of mathematician and scientist Katherine Johnson (1918-2020).  Johnson was one of the first Black women to work at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and her multi-decade career there included support of multiple historic flights, including those of Alan Shepard and John Glenn.  

“Data-equatingly, /
Katherine Johnson, /
As mathematician, /
Will orbits apprise…”

Katherine Johnson was only 18 when she graduated summa cum laude from West Virginia State University, majoring in both mathematics and French. She began her career as a math teacher, but she is most well-known for her subsequent work at NASA as a “human computer” during the Space Race.  As such, she “data-equatingly” solved many complex calculations in support of mission launches, orbits, and re-entries.     

She would later note that her love of mathematics was there from childhood: “I counted everything. I counted the steps to the road, the steps up to church, the number of dishes and silverware I washed … anything that could be counted, I did.”

“Gifts analytic and /
Genius logistic /
Facilitate NASA’s paths /
To, through the skies.” 

The recent movie Hidden Figures told Johnson’s story, along with those of two of her colleagues, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, during the time surrounding John Glenn’s orbit of the Earth in 1962; Glenn was the first American to complete an orbit.  

As recounted in that film, Glenn had asked that Johnson, specifically, verify the mathematical calculations surrounding his historic flight.  Johnson’s “gifts analytic and genius logistic” were central in this momentous step in American history.  Her career would continue with support of the Apollo moon landing and many other efforts until her retirement in 1986.  

Johnson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2019.  NASA also recognized Johnson’s efforts, renaming a program in her honor and presenting her with one of their “Silver Snoopy” awards, an honor which is bestowed specifically by NASA astronauts for outstanding support of the space program.