The Elements Song
Apr. 29th, 2008 09:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylWe were all deeply enamoured by The Elements Song when I was at school. I think we couldn't quite believe that so many of the elements had such great names: Thulium! Thallium! Ruthenium! Radium! These were some the reasons I became a chemist.
But it turned out that chemistry wasn't so much making up stupid names for things and singing, as endless hours in the lab, solving really difficult sums and far less fun than Dr Lehrer made it seem all those years ago.
Eventually I ditched physical science in favour of watching a complicated machine spend all day doing stupid things for no discernible reason. Sort of like watching a kitten with a ball of wool. Except without the kitten. And without the ball of wool.
But it turned out that chemistry wasn't so much making up stupid names for things and singing, as endless hours in the lab, solving really difficult sums and far less fun than Dr Lehrer made it seem all those years ago.
Eventually I ditched physical science in favour of watching a complicated machine spend all day doing stupid things for no discernible reason. Sort of like watching a kitten with a ball of wool. Except without the kitten. And without the ball of wool.
