The Night Before Chemistry

BY DAVID JOHN HARDER, REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION

This original poem definitely belongs in a section of creative writing. It was given me for Christmas in 2001 with the note, "To my mother, Arlene, for showing me things that 'matter'." It is a clever way of describing how science progresses because of people who have strived to be the best they can be. Thus it also fits into this website because our goal is to help everyone become the best they can be.

The poem is dedicated "to the memory of Henry Gwyn Jeffrey Moseley, who was quite possibly the most intelligent person who ever lived. Before his life was tragically taken from him in world-war one, at the tender age of 27, he literally single-handedly revolutionized chemistry by rearranging the elements into order of atomic numbers. We can only guess as to what further contributions he may have made to the world of science had he lived a normal lifespan."

The poem is based on the book Crucibles, the Story of Chemistry, by Bernard Jaffe and the poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas," also known as "The Night Before Christmas."

Incidentally, if you enjoy the poem, you are likely to also enjoy David's "Glossary of Helpful Definitions for Non-chemists."

— Arlene Harder, MA, MFT

The Night Before Chemistry

'Twas the night before Chemistry

When all throughout Europe

The Alchemists were stirring

Some salts into syrups

The crucibles were hung

By the furnace with care

In hopes the Philosopher's

Stone would be there

Trevisan and others

Were smug in their heads

With visions of making

Some gold from some lead

And then Paracelsus

Cried "Fie to this crap!

It's time to wake up

From our dark ages nap"

He burned lots of books

And raised such a clatter

Then challenged the world

Saying "Here's what's the matter!

Away with your witchcraft"

He said in a flash

"Let's open new windows

And throw out the trash"

Then Becher came along

And created great ire

With his "Philostogen"

Theory of fire

Its chameleon-like nature

Was quite a distraction

Yet it led to the study

Of simple reactions

Tho' Becher kept looking

For ways to make gold

Thanks to his work

Great new things would unfold

Then when some bubbles

Appeared in some beer

Along came Joe Priestly

Who said "What's this here?"

He found See-oh-Two

And figured out nitrogen

Breathed life into science

With something called Oxygen

Although the king wanted

The Philosophers' asses

Joe kept on working with colorless gases

Meticulous Cavendish

Had plenty of money

He was brilliant at science

But acted quite funny

Being short in his words

Finding few were just plenty

He said Argon in air

Is "One part in one-twenty"

He analyzed water

And then shouted "Yo!

It's two parts of H

And one part of O"

Lavosier was boiling

A lot in his pelican

When told that he couldn't

He said "Yes the hell I can!"

His theory of burning

Led him to exclaim

"The reactants and products

Have weights just the same"

And then while studying

Man's respiration

The guillotine stole

His head from his nation

And Dalton made science

A worthwhile career

With keen observations

Of earth's atmosphere

He drew little pictures

Of atoms for fun

With relative weights

Calling Hydrogen "One"

His trembling hand

Made his last writing wavy

He encountered resistance

From greats such as Davy

The gas Nitrous Oxide

Was laughed at, it seems,

When Berzelius tried

To explain what it means

His crude calculations

Of atomic weights

Were amazingly accurate

And still are to date

He came up with a system

Of chemical signs

Which is still being used

And it seems to work fine

Avogadro found atoms

To be parts of "molecules"

So they named him a number

That's really phenomenal

"Six-Point-Oh-Two

Times ten to twenty three

That's the number of things

In a mole" they decreed

The work that he'd done

In molecular composition

Had earned him in history

A numeric position

Woehler (with Liebig)

Worked hard, almost manic

He did some fine things

In the field of Organics

He wrote papers on urea

And bitter almonds

Then went on to study

All sorts of new compounds

By isolating Yttrium,

Aluminum and Beryllium.

Thanks to him, Chem-One

Just won't be the same again

What Mendeleeff found missing

Was Eka-Aluminum

Some called him a prophet

Yet many made fun of him

He pinned cards to the wall

And made some assumptions

Then figured they'd fit

Into periodic functions

He arranged all the elements

By their atomic weights

And said "Either I'm crazy

Or they repeat at eight"

Then came a great dreamer

Some called him a genius

For the battle of Ions

Was won by Arrhenius

He carefully washed

All his beakers and flasks

Finding dissociated particles

Was a difficult task

With electrical currents

He sent through solutions

He opened the doors

To a new revolution

And then what to the wondering

World should appear

But a girl named Marie

And a guy named Pierre

The Curies worked hard

In their little old shed

While radioactive dreams

Danced in their heads

Marie was quite shy

But she silenced the stadium

When she gave her big talk on the nature of Radium

Thompson then chased

The elusive electron

And found its mass was

"Two thousandth's of hydrogen's"

And Rutherford did somethin'

That's almost worth notin'

He found a small thing

And called it a "Proton"

Crookes looked at light

And said "Ah, this is matter"

What Geiger "encountered"

Were small things that scattered

Then in less than four years

A young man named Moseley

Sorted atoms by numbers

Just like they're supposed to be

The elements he placed

On his newly found table

Were based on hard data

Not guesswork or fables

That one lousy bullet

That passed through his head

Surely cost the world more

Than could ever be said

Bohr found electrons

Would "jump" very well

Langmuir solved valence

With something called "shells"

The future looked bright

They all had great hopes

Harking said "neutrons"

Explained isotopes

Then Schrodinger's "wave"

And Pauli's new "principle"

Made Heisenburg's quantum

Mechanics invincible.

When Einstein led Fermi

To fission reaction

Oppenheimer called

All the boys into action

"Come Lawrence and Compton

Urey and Anderson

Rabi and Millikan

And Stern and Davisson"

They built a big bomb

And made it quite clear

The nuclear age

Was finally here

So what the Alchemists started

With alembics and dishes

Turned out to fulfill

A great many wishes

Instead of the gold

Of which they had dreamed

They created a science

Much greater, it seems

We give thanks to these folks

Who showed us the light

"Happy Chemistry to all

And to all, a good night"

— © Copyright 2001, Revised 2010, David John Harder