Tag: writing

“The month and its practice now closing:
One last set of lines here composing; 
The April routine, 
As the poems convene,
Yielding busy month’s moments engrossing.”

The 30 April 2024 Twitter limerick marks the end of NaPoWriMo2024, and we have reached the last week of spring semester classes here.    

“The month and its practice now closing: /
One last set of lines here composing…”

Reaching this landmark each spring always means a shorter translation essay than the last few, since it’s a fairly transparent topic!  April 30 marks the end of National Poetry Writing Month, so this limerick was the last in 2024.  

(It is also my last Twitter post entirely; I shifted to Bluesky as of December and have been working towards this month’s routine in that new location.)

“The April routine, /
As the poems convene, /
Yielding busy month’s moments engrossing.”   

2019 was my first year in completing this April routine.  I have learned a great deal in continuing the practice over the last several years: it has provided good chances to finally resolve vocabulary questions I always wondered about; to finally learn the stories of the scientists whose insights formed the substance of the textbooks I’d used for years. 

April also lines up with a particularly stressful time of the school year, so that I welcome any “moments engrossing” that can be distinct from year-ending responsibilities and tasks.  

***

Along those lines, as in previous years: while I look forward to writing some summer essays, I will take a break here for a few weeks, to celebrate the end of another busy spring semester. 

In art form creative and elegant,
A use of chem properties prevalent…
If error avoided, 
Then product ovoid is
Example of wax resist, eloquent!  

This non-Twitter/Bluesky poem commemorates a fascinating art process I was introduced to last spring: the technique behind making pysanky.  (Since the concepts are still relatively new to me, I doubt my ability to be succinct and remain clear: I’ll plan to keep my word limit at 560 words this time.)      

“In art form creative and elegant…”

I was lucky to attend a pysanka workshop on campus in Spring 2024 to learn about this creative and elegant artwork from Ukrainian culture.  (Pysanka is the singular form of the word; pysanky is the plural.) To sum up any process in an introductory blog post does not do it credit, so I’ll add in some pertinent links here.  

In brief, a design is painted on the egg in beeswax, using a stylus that can deliver the wax in a thin line, and the egg is then dyed a color.  These two steps are repeated over several layers.  At the close of the process, all the wax is melted off, ultimately yielding an egg dyed in a variety of colors.  My own amateur attempts are shown here, but I recommend seeking out other images, as the resulting designs can be astoundingly intricate.     

“A use of chem properties prevalent…”  

I was quite interested in exploring the underlying chemistry that made this possible.  While I am still learning, it has seemed likely so far that the dyes used are examples of acid dyes: they are water-soluble and contain functional groups such as carboxylic acids or sulfonic acids that can donate a proton in water, so that the dye molecule takes on a negative charge.  Opposite charges attract, forming strong ionic bonds: thus, the negatively-charged dye then works well with protein-based compounds, which are also water-soluble and can form positively-charged species in the acidic dye bath.  

Eggshells consist of calcium carbonate and proteins, so they work well with acid dyes.    However, beeswax is resistant to such interactions, because it has a primarily hydrocarbon structure, being made of long-chain esters.  It is not water-soluble, and it does not have functional groups that can react with water to form anything charged, so it does not bond to an acid dye.  

Inherent in the art process are thus a variety of chemical properties of the materials used, such as solubility, miscibility, acid-base reactivity, and bonding.                 

“If error avoided, /
Then product ovoid is /
Example of wax resist, eloquent!”  

I was intrigued throughout the evening by how challenging and invigorating this “experiment” was. 

It was necessary to continually aim to create a negative image: the first area covered with wax would preserve the white of the eggshell. After the first dye layer was applied, the second area covered with wax would then preserve the color of the first dye. After the second dye layer was applied, the third area covered with wax would then preserve the color of the second dye, and so on.  

I found myself strongly reminded of the retrosynthesis problems I had worked decades before in Organic Chemistry, thinking backward one step at a time, all the way back to the starting material: here, the egg itself.  (My own endeavors were quite simple, but expert pysanka artists use a variety of symbols and designs with a wealth of meaning.)  

This was in addition to the many practical challenges involved in working with the set-up, since it relied on eggs, dyes, wax, and flames, all providing ample room for error!  However, even in my initial attempts, I was quite pleased to see the “product ovoid.”  

In researching the technique afterwards, I have likewise been interested to learn more about wax resist generally, seeing the principles that make such processes work from an artistic perspective.  (The “wax eloquent” phrase has been on my mind over the past year, given the intricacy and beauty of the sample pysanky that were shared at the 2024 workshop.)

“A myria-myrio mystery—
Some prefixes, lost now to history:
These factors, past-metric,
Deemed over-eclectic
In measured decision’s delivery.”  

The 29 April 2024 Twitter limerick summarized what had been a newfound discovery for me last spring– that the list of metric prefixes commonly used in science used to be longer. As ever, I find it frustrating that time constraints and coverage expectations preclude the discussion of such points in coursework, but it is a good opportunity to explore the story here.     

“A myria-myrio mystery— / 
Some prefixes, lost now to history…” 

The metric prefixes are enormously useful aspects of scientific communication, allow us to easily communicate measurements expressed in the International System (SI units) on a variety of scales.  Distances between towns on a map are generally expressed in kilometers (km), which means 10³ meters; the metric prefix kilo stands in for 10³, or 1000.  Atomic sizes are expressed in picometers (pm), which means 10^-12 meters; the metric prefix pico stands in for 10^-12, so showing that order of magnitude would otherwise, inconveniently, require eleven zeroes before the 1.              

The prefix myrio, also expressed myria, indicated the order of 10,000 (10⁴).  While it was used with the SI units for several centuries, it was eliminated from usage at the General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960, where the SI units were adopted internationally.  Such prefixes are “lost now to history,” as the accepted metric prefixes now jump from kilo (10³) to mega (10⁶).     

“These factors, past-metric, /
Deemed over-eclectic /
In measured decision’s delivery.” 

For myrio specifically, the reason for its removal seems to have been aspirational clarity in metric abbreviations.  The prefix myrio/myria had historically been abbreviated as my.  As the metric prefixes were standardized, scientists moved towards abbreviating all the metric prefixes with single letters for simplicity (as noted above, kilometers are km, and picometers are pm).  The letter M is already used in both its capital (M for mega, or 10⁶) and lower-case (m for milli, or 10^-3) forms, so that myrio and myria would be “over-eclectic.”  

The discussion at the pertinent metrology conference could presumably be characterized as a “measured decision” in a few ways. 

“I think that verse shall never serve 
To summarize botanic verve 
With which the trees persist, delight—
But: given day, four lines I’ll write.”

The 26 April 2024 Twitter poem was an homage to Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees,” which famously begins: “I think that I shall never see/ A poem lovely as a tree…”  

“I think that verse shall never serve 
To summarize botanic verve…” 

I originally wrote this quick verse simply as an Arbor Day celebration, knowing the original lines themselves and imagining some additional rhymes possible with their memorable meter. 

Botany is a field I wish I knew more about, but I’ve greatly enjoyed and appreciated the eloquent writing for general audiences in Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, Beronda Montgomery’s Lessons from Plants, Hope Jahren’s Lab Girl, and other books.  Moreover, in an intriguing inversion of the way chemistry vocabulary can keep many challenging chemistry concepts doubly hidden, it is inspiring how the “botanic verve” of newfound spring weather keeps the trees themselves front and center, defying the layer of technical jargon.   

“With which the trees persist, delight—
But: given day, four lines I’ll write.”

Along those lines, one of my early memories of science classwork is of collecting and classifying specimens for a seventh-grade leaf collection, many years ago.  

Looking through it now, my first thought is of the significant preserving power of contact paper!  My second impression is the rueful memory of the points missing for my failing to italicize the Latin names of the trees from which these leaves came.  But finally, more lastingly, I also can appreciate that in the decades since this project, I have been far more likely to remember the shape and color of Quercus rubra (northern red oak) or Acer saccharinum (silver maple) than the grade deduction: indeed, the “trees persist [and] delight.”     

***

As often happens in revisiting the poem for these essays, I found the story behind the scenes to be more complex than I initially would have guessed. 

Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918) was an American writer and poet who died at age 31, fighting in World War 1.  “Trees,” which had been written in 1914, remains his most famous poem, and his name is commemorated by forests, schools, libraries, and parks across the United States.  

Consisting of several distinctive rhyming couplets, the poem itself is famous enough to have its own Wikipedia page.  Many locations have apparently claimed “the” tree that inspired the famous work, but Kilmer’s son Keaton later wrote to a researcher: “Mother and I agreed, when we talked about it, that Dad never meant his poem to apply to one particular tree, or to the trees of any special region. Just any trees or all trees that might be rained on or snowed on, and that would be suitable nesting places for robins. I guess they’d have to have upward-reaching branches, too, for the line about ‘lifting leafy arms to pray.’ Rule out weeping willows.”   

I found it surprising and moving to contrast the longevity of Kilmer’s poem with the brevity of his own life.  As ever, similarly, it is striking to consider the difference in lifetimes between human beings and trees: the vastly different timescales present every time anyone takes a walk in a forest.   

“Consider the protein as topic
Of int’rest most etymologic:
A vocab-themed mission 
Reflects first position
Through protean path biologic!”   

The 25 April 2024 limerick examined the etymology of the word “protein,” highlighting a topic from biochemistry in honor of the annual celebration of DNA Day.  

“Consider the protein as topic / 
Of int’rest most etymologic…”

I was interested last April in exploring a question of biochemistry vocabulary, which quickly became more complex than I expected.  After much internet searching last spring, I also found a helpful overview in Isaac Asimov’s Words of Science, in composing this essay.       

“A vocab-themed mission / 
 Reflects first position /
Through protean path biologic!”   

Asimov notes that British chemist William Prout classified three kinds of food-related substances in 1827: what would ultimately become known as carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins in subsequent years were originally deemed the “saccharins,” the “oily,” and the “albuminous,” respectively.  

The albuminous compounds (so named because they were a cloudy white, from the Latin albus for “white”– think of egg white, for instance) were seen to contain nitrogen, unlike the compounds in the other two categories.  Dutch chemist Gerardus Johannes Mulder more clearly defined the albuminous compounds, citing in 1838 their common properties and elemental compositions (percentages of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen).  He corresponded with Swedish chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius, who suggested the name “protein” for this type of substance, building on the Greek for “in the first place,” since parallel studies were showing the immense (“first-place”) importance of proteins for nutrition.      

The last line of the poem likewise notes the centrality of proteins to the complex discipline of biochemistry.  It features the similarity between “protein” and “protean”; the latter term also comes from the same Greek root for “first” and highlights the connection to the Greek god Proteus, famous for changing forms.  (This became a quite appropriate allusion, considering how challenging it was to track down a concrete answer to this seemingly simple question.)  

“A need for alkene can be fill-ed /
Through synthetic effort most skill-ed: / 
Reaction approaching, /
On ketone encroaching, /
Employing the chem of the ylide.” 

The 24 April 2024 limerick summarized the Wittig reaction, a well-known process in organic chemistry.  The structure of the poem allowed for pronunciation hints about one of the novel vocabulary terms involved.    

“A need for alkene can be fill-ed /
Through synthetic effort most skill-ed…”

The Wittig reaction is named for German chemist Georg Wittig (1897-1987), who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1979 for developing important reagents in organic synthesis.  The Wittig reaction is illustrated here.  It is famous as a synthetic pathway to alkenes: compounds with carbon-to-carbon double bonds (C=C).  

“Reaction approaching, /
On ketone encroaching, /
Employing the chem of the ylide.” 

The Wittig reaction occurs between a compound containing a carbonyl group (an aldehyde or a ketone) and a compound called a triphenylphosphine ylide.  

The ylide has both a positive and negative charge within one structure; it “encroaches” on the ketone (or aldehyde) due to this unusual reactivity.  The reaction ultimately yields an alkene and a side product of triphenylphosphine oxide.      

“Ylide” seems one of organic chemistry’s more confounding instances of jargon, at first glance; it is pronounced in such a way as to rhyme with “fill-ed” and “skill-ed,” as the poem ideally suggests.  

***

A brief postscript to this particular essay:

Speaking of “ylides,” I was intrigued as a student with the etymology of the unusual word, but I never tracked it down.  When this poem came to mind last year, I was pleased to have a new inspiration… after only fifteen-or-so years of having the question running in the background!

I’ve learned in my time preparing and teaching courses that the Nobel Prize lectures, compiled online, are unique chances to read narrative accounts of research from scientists, rather than the technical accounts found in journal articles. 

I suspected that Wittig’s lecture might include his inspiration for the novel term, and I was glad to confirm this.  In his Nobel lecture, Wittig writes: “We gave the name N-ylides to this new class of substances since the bonding of the carbon to the neighboring nitrogen is homopolar (yl) and ionic (ide) at the same time.” The phosphorus ylides from the Wittig reaction demonstrate similar chemistry, with aspects of both molecular and ionic bonding patterns.

(Wittig’s lecture title highlights this unusual chemical species and others in a creative way: “From Diyls to Ylides to My Idyll.”)