Short Chemistry Quotes

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Stop focusing on the bad stuff because life is too damn short.
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
And as humans, we’re by-products of our upbringings, victims of our lackluster educational systems, and choosers of our behaviors. In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural. And it starts with two words: pink and blue. Everything skyrockets out of control from there.” Speaking
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
He has no clue that I have the patience of a saint. At least that's what Carlos says, although that isn't saying much, considering his fuse is about as short as an eyelash.
Simone Elkeles (Chain Reaction (Perfect Chemistry, #3))
He laughs. "Put some clothes on so you don't scare poor Kiara with your morning hard-on." I look down at my shorts. Sure enough, I've got la tengo dura in front of Kiara and Tuck. Shit. I reach out for the first thing I can grab and put it in front of me to shield myself from view. It happens to be one of Kiara's stuffed animals, but I don't have much choice right now. "That's Kiara's Mojo," Tuck says, laughing. "Get it? Mojo?
Simone Elkeles (Rules of Attraction (Perfect Chemistry, #2))
Adrian looked over at me again. “Who knows more about male weakness: you or me?” “Go on.” I refused to directly answer the question. “Get a new dress. One that shows a lot of skin. Short. Strapless. Maybe a push-up bra too.” He actually had the audacity to do a quick assessment of my chest. “Eh, maybe not. But definitely some high heels.” “Adrian,” I exclaimed. “You’ve seen how Alchemists dress. Do you think I can really wear something like that?” He was unconcerned. “You’ll make it work. You’ll change clothes or something. But I’m telling you, if you want to get a guy to do something that might be difficult, then the best way is to distract him so that he can’t devote his full brainpower to the consequences.” “You don’t have a lot of faith in your own gender.” “Hey, I’m telling you the truth. I’ve been distracted by sexy dresses a lot.” I didn’t really know if that was a valid argument, seeing as Adrian was distracted by a lot of things. Fondue. T-shirts. Kittens. “And so, what then? I show some skin, and the world is mine?” “That’ll help.” Amazingly, I could tell he was dead serious. “And you’ve gotta act confident the whole time, like it’s already a done deal. Then make sure when you’re actually asking for what you want that you tell him you’d be ‘so, so grateful.’ But don’t elaborate. His imagination will do half the work for you. ” I shook my head, glad we’d almost reached our destination. I didn’t know how much more I could listen to. “This is the most ridiculous advice I’ve ever heard. It’s also kind of sexist too, but I can’t decide who it offends more, men or women.” “Look, Sage. I don’t know much about chemistry or computer hacking or photosynthery, but this is something I’ve got a lot of experience with.” I think he meant photosynthesis, but I didn’t correct him. “Use my knowledge. Don’t let it go to waste.
Richelle Mead (The Indigo Spell (Bloodlines, #3))
You're so critical. Oh, God, I'd do anything for you to stop blaming me for every little thing that goes wrong. Love me for who I am. Love Shelley for who she is. Stop focusing on the bad stuff because life is just too damn short.
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
Lipids are fats used as storage on call All humans require them; the short and the tall
Mohamad Jebara (The Illustrious Garden)
Scientists are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth - the universe looks suspiciously like a fix. The issue concerns the very laws of nature themselves. For 40 years, physicists and cosmologists have been quietly collecting examples of all too convenient "coincidences" and special features in the underlying laws of the universe that seem to be necessary in order for life, and hence conscious beings, to exist. Change any one of them and the consequences would be lethal. Fred Hoyle, the distinguished cosmologist, once said it was as if "a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics". To see the problem, imagine playing God with the cosmos. Before you is a designer machine that lets you tinker with the basics of physics. Twiddle this knob and you make all electrons a bit lighter, twiddle that one and you make gravity a bit stronger, and so on. It happens that you need to set thirtysomething knobs to fully describe the world about us. The crucial point is that some of those metaphorical knobs must be tuned very precisely, or the universe would be sterile. Example: neutrons are just a tad heavier than protons. If it were the other way around, atoms couldn't exist, because all the protons in the universe would have decayed into neutrons shortly after the big bang. No protons, then no atomic nucleuses and no atoms. No atoms, no chemistry, no life. Like Baby Bear's porridge in the story of Goldilocks, the universe seems to be just right for life.
Paul C.W. Davies
Do I have an original thought in my head? My bald head. Maybe if I were happier, my hair wouldn't be falling out. Life is short. I need to make the most of it. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I'm a walking cliché. I really need to go to the doctor and have my leg checked. There's something wrong. A bump. The dentist called again. I'm way overdue. If I stop putting things off, I would be happier. All I do is sit on my fat ass. If my ass wasn't fat I would be happier. I wouldn't have to wear these shirts with the tails out all the time. Like that's fooling anyone. Fat ass. I should start jogging again. Five miles a day. Really do it this time. Maybe rock climbing. I need to turn my life around. What do I need to do? I need to fall in love. I need to have a girlfriend. I need to read more, improve myself. What if I learned Russian or something? Or took up an instrument? I could speak Chinese. I'd be the screenwriter who speaks Chinese and plays the oboe. That would be cool. I should get my hair cut short. Stop trying to fool myself and everyone else into thinking I have a full head of hair. How pathetic is that? Just be real. Confident. Isn't that what women are attracted to? Men don't have to be attractive. But that's not true. Especially these days. Almost as much pressure on men as there is on women these days. Why should I be made to feel I have to apologize for my existence? Maybe it's my brain chemistry. Maybe that's what's wrong with me. Bad chemistry. All my problems and anxiety can be reduced to a chemical imbalance or some kind of misfiring synapses. I need to get help for that. But I'll still be ugly though. Nothing's gonna change that.
Charlie Kaufman
It's after school, after my double detentions for gym and chemistry, and I'm at Knead, about to begin working on a new piece. I wedge the clay out against my board, enjoying the therapeutic quality of each smack, prod, and punch. As the clay oozes between my fingers and pastes against my skin, images of all sorts begin to pop into my head. I try my best to push them away,to focus instead on the cold and clammy sensation of the mound and the way it helps me relax. But after only a few short minutes of solitude, I hear someone storm their way up the back stairwell. At first I think it's Spencer, but then I hear the voice: "I'm coming up the stairs," Adam bellows. "I'm approaching the studio area, about to pass by the sink." I turn to look, noticing he's standing only a few feet behind me now. "I hope I didn't startle you this time," he says. "Ha-ha." I hold back my smile. "I would have called your cell to tell you I was coming up, but you never gave me your number." "I'm fine," I assure him, unable to stifle a giggle.
Laurie Faria Stolarz (Deadly Little Lies (Touch, #2))
I think I succeeded as a writer because I did not come out of an English department. I used to write in the chemistry department. And I wrote some good stuff. If I had been in the English department, the prof would have looked at my short stories, congratulated me on my talent, and then showed me how Joyce or Hemingway handled the same elements of the short story. The prof would have placed me in competition with the greatest writers of all time, and that would have ended my writing career.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
...in the lower self, love is neediness, “chemistry” or infatuation, possession, strong admiration, or even worship—in short, traditional romantic love. Many people who grew up in troubled homes and who experienced a stifling of their Child Within become stuck at these lower levels or ways of experiencing love.
Charles L. Whitfield (Healing the Child Within: Discovery and Recovery for Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families)
And as humans, we’re by-products of our upbringings, victims of our lackluster educational systems, and choosers of our behaviors. In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural. And it starts with two words: pink and blue. Everything skyrockets out of control from there.
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
As the physicist Paul Davies puts it, 'If everything needs everything else, how did the communities of molecules ever arise in the first place?' It is rather as if all the ingredients in your kitchen somehow got together and baked themselves into a cake - but a cake that could moreover divide when necessary to produce more cakes. It is little wonder that we call it the miracle of life. It is also little wonder that we have barely begun to understand it.
Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
Whatever else it may be, at the level of chemistry life is curiously mundane: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, a little calcium, a dash of sulfur, a light dusting of other very ordinary elements—nothing you wouldn’t find in any ordinary drugstore—and that’s all you need. The only thing special about the atoms that make you is that they make you. That is of course the miracle of life.
Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
According to Harriet, men were a world apart from women. They required coddling, they had fragile egos, they couldn’t allow a woman intelligence or skill if it exceeded their own. “Harriet, that’s ridiculous,” Elizabeth had argued. “Men and women are both human beings. And as humans, we’re by-products of our upbringings, victims of our lackluster educational systems, and choosers of our behaviors. In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural. And it starts with two words: pink and blue. Everything skyrockets out of control from there.
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
Frodo bears the ring. He carries it. But,” I lifted a finger in the air for emphasis, “Samwise is his trusted servant, and he is very trustworthy. He supports Frodo, he keeps Frodo from giving up. He even bears the ring for a short time. Plus there’s this bit at the very end that…well, you’ll have to read the book. So, the question is—who deserves the credit for the destruction of the ring? Who was stronger? Frodo or Samwise? The master or the servant?
Penny Reid (Attraction (Elements of Chemistry, #1; Hypothesis, #1.1))
Thankfully for us, water seems unaware of the rules of chemistry or laws of physics. Everyone
Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
We are gaining the knowledge; science is giving us that. Now we need wisdom as well.
Isaac Asimov (A Short History of Chemistry (Science Study))
In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural.
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural. And
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
Thankfully for us, water seems unaware of the rules of chemistry or laws of physics.
Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural. And it starts
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
At my urgent request the Curie laboratory, in which radium was discovered a short time ago, was shown to me. The Curies themselves were away travelling. It was a cross between a stable and a potato-cellar, and, if I had not seen the worktable with the chemical apparatus, I would have thought it a practical joke. (Wilhelm Ostwald on seeing the Curie's laboratory facilities.)
Ostwald Wilhelm
Mr Unavailable’s inadvertently complicit partner is you, the Fallback Girl, the woman he habitually defaults to or ‘falls back’ on to have his needs met while selling you short in the process. Accommodating his idiosyncrasies and fickle whims, you’re ripe for a relationship with him because you are unavailable yourself (although you may not know it) and are slipping your own commitment issues in through the back door behind his. You get blinded by chemistry, sex, common interests and the promise of what he could be, if only he changed or you turned into The Perfect Woman. Too understanding and making far too many excuses for him, you have some habits and beliefs that are standing in the way of you having a mutually, fulfilling healthy relationship…with an available man. Pursuing or having relationships with Mr Unavailable is symbolic of your need to learn to love yourself more and to set some boundaries and have better standards.
Natalie Lue (Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl)
In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural. And it starts with two words: pink and blue.
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
Men and women are both human beings. And as humans, we’re by-products of our upbringings, victims of our lackluster educational systems, and choosers of our behaviors. In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural. And it starts with two words: pink and blue. Everything skyrockets our of control from there.
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
Men and women are both human beings. And as humans, we’re by-products of our upbringings, victims of our lackluster educational systems, and choosers of our behaviors. In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural. And it starts with two words: pink and blue. Everything skyrockets out of control from there.
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
Memories must somehow be represented physically in the brain. Brain chemistry and structure is altered by experience and the stability of these physicochemical changes presumably corresponds to the retention duration of memory.
Michael O'Shea (The Brain: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions))
In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural. And it starts with two words: pink and blue. Everything skyrockets out of control from there.
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
Kim was too short. And then he thought, What about Madeline? Elizabeth had read him Remembrance of Things Past—he couldn’t really recommend it—but he had understood that one part. The part about the madeleine. The biscuit. Madeline Zott? Why not?
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
The stories were short, memorable, and covered all the bases of love, pride, folly, and forgiveness. Their rules were bite-sized: Don’t be a jerk. Don’t hurt other people or animals. Share what you have with others less fortunate. In other words, be nice.
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
From across the room, Elizabeth straightened her papers, then rose. “Sorry to cut this short, Calvin, but I have a meeting.” “A meeting?” Calvin said, as if she’d just announced she was attending an execution. “If you worked in my lab, you’d never have to go to meetings.
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
Somewhere in all this, it was thought, there also resided a mysterious élan vital, the force that brought inanimate objects to life. No-one knew where this ethereal essence lay, but two things seemed probable: that you could enliven it with a jolt of electricity (a notion Mary Shelley exploited to full effect in her novel Frankenstein); and that it existed in some substances but not others, which is why we ended up with two branches of chemistry4: organic (for those substances that were thought to have it) and inorganic (for those that did not).
Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
the groundbreakers in many sciences were devout believers. Witness the accomplishments of Nicolaus Copernicus (a priest) in astronomy, Blaise Pascal (a lay apologist) in mathematics, Gregor Mendel (a monk) in genetics, Louis Pasteur in biology, Antoine Lavoisier in chemistry, John von Neumann in computer science, and Enrico Fermi and Erwin Schrodinger in physics. That’s a short list, and it includes only Roman Catholics; a long list could continue for pages. A roster that included other believers—Protestants, Jews, and unconventional theists like Albert Einstein, Fred Hoyle, and Paul Davies—could fill a book.
Scott Hahn (Reasons to Believe: How to Understand, Explain, and Defend the Catholic Faith)
The birds do not sing, clouds remain of rubber, glass, steel. A stone has lodged in the engine block, the process of rusting has begun. And then darkness, a cold wind, a shred of clothing fluttering where it is snagged on one of the doors which, quite unscathed, lies flat in the grass. And then daylight, changing temperature, a night of cold rain, the short-lived presence of a scavenging rodent. And despite all this chemistry of time, nothing has disturbed the essential integrity of our tableau of chaos, the point being that if design inevitably surrenders to debris, debris inevitably reveals its innate design.
John Hawkes (Travesty)
There was in Madison’s critical assessment of the state governments a discernible antidemocratic ethos rooted in the conviction that political popularity generated a toxic chemistry of appeasement and demagoguery that privileged popular whim and short-term interests at the expense of the long-term public interest.
Joseph J. Ellis (The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789)
Men and women are both human beings. And as humans, we’re by-products of our upbringings, victims of our lackluster educational systems, and choosers of our behaviors. In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural.
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
Love is un-natural. Do any of these traits come naturally? Granted, we know how to turn them all on when we’re winning and wooing. But love does not sustain itself naturally. What come naturally are passion, lust, chemistry, and that “can’t wait to get you alone” feeling. But over time, all of that is eventually squashed by our unbridled, selfish, self-preserving natures. The brand of love Paul describes is a nonnegotiable for those desiring to sustain the chemistry and romance that make the early days of a relationship so exhilarating. Romance is sustained by patience, kindness, humility, and a short memory. While none of those things come naturally, every one of them is necessary. Otherwise our wounds, insecurities, and parental implants will become the driving forces and send the relationship in a bad direction. When that happens, good-bye, chemistry. Good-bye, romance. Hello, I guess I just haven’t met the right person. It’s that kind of thinking that creates the myth. It’s a myth to think that once you meet the right person, you will become a different person. The love of your life should bring out the best in you. But only you can prevent forest fires. Sorry. Only you can prevent your impatience, unkindness, pride, anger, and record keeping from undermining your relationship.
Andy Stanley (The New Rules for Love, Sex, and Dating)
Studies show that most housewives feel the greatest amount of pressure at this time of day. They have much to accomplish in a very short window of time: make dinner, set the table, locate their children—the list is long. But they’re still groggy and depressed. That is why this particular time slot comes with such great responsibility.
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
that you could enliven it with a jolt of electricity (a notion Mary Shelley exploited to full effect in her novel Frankenstein) and that it existed in some substances but not others, which is why we ended up with two branches of chemistry: organic (for those substances that were thought to have it) and inorganic (for those that did not).
Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
What’s wrong with believing in ourselves? Anyway, if stories must be used, why not rely on a fable or fairy tale? Aren’t they just as valid a vehicle for teaching morality? Except maybe better? Because no one has to pretend to believe that the fables and tales are true?” Although he didn’t admit to it, Wakely found himself agreeing. No one had to pray to Snow White or fear the wrath of Rumpelstiltskin to understand the message. The stories were short, memorable, and covered all the bases of love, pride, folly, and forgiveness. Their rules were bite-sized: Don’t be a jerk. Don’t hurt other people or animals. Share what you have with others less fortunate. In other words, be nice.
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
Whatever else it may be, at the level of chemistry life is curiously mundane: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, a little calcium, a dash of sulfur, a light dusting of other very ordinary elements—nothing you wouldn’t find in any ordinary drugstore—and that’s all you need. The only thing special about the atoms that make you is that they make you
Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
Men and women are both human beings. And as humans, we’re by-products of our upbringings, victims of our lackluster educational systems, and choosers of our behaviors. In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural. And it starts with two words: pink and blue.
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
Harriet was her only real friend, and they agreed on most things, but on this, they did not. According to Harriet, men were a world apart from women. They required coddling, they had fragile egos, they couldn’t allow a woman intelligence or skill if it exceeded their own. “Harriet, that’s ridiculous,” Elizabeth had argued. “Men and women are both human beings. And as humans, we’re by-products of our upbringings, victims of our lackluster educational systems, and choosers of our behaviors. In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural. And it starts with two words: pink and blue. Everything skyrockets out of control from there.
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
What makes a bad sex scene, in my opinion, is when the chemistry between the characters hasn't been built up enough at the beginning in order for me to care about how hot the sex is. During the sex, I don't want to just know the ins and outs of what's happening — I want to get into the characters' minds (or at least one of theirs) and know how it all feels for them, what their own experience is like.
Lexi Sylver
Men and women are human beings. And as humans, we are byproducts of our upbringings, victims of our lackluster educational systems, and choosers of our behaviors. In short, the reduction of women, to something less than men, and the elevation of men do something more than women, it’s not biological: it’s cultural. And it starts with two words: pink and blue. Everything skyrockets out of control from there.
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
Men and women are both human beings. And as humans. we're by-products of our upbringings, victims of our lackluster educational systems, and choosers of our behaviors. In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not bio-logical: it's cultural. And it starts with two words: pink and blue. Everything skyrockets out of control from there.
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
argued. “Men and women are both human beings. And as humans, we’re by-products of our upbringings, victims of our lackluster educational systems, and choosers of our behaviors. In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural. And it starts with two words: pink and blue. Everything skyrockets out of control from there.” Speaking
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
Shellac is a hard resinous secretion from the Indian lac beetle. Lac beetles emerge in swarms in parts of India at certain times of the year, and their secretions make varnish that is odorless, nontoxic, brilliantly shiny, and highly resistant to scratches and fading. It doesn’t attract dust while wet, and it dries in minutes. Even now, in an age of chemistry, shellac has scores of applications against which synthetic products cannot compete.
Bill Bryson (At Home: A Short History of Private Life)
Although he didn’t admit to it, Wakely found himself agreeing. No one had to pray to Snow White or fear the wrath of Rumpelstiltskin to understand the message. The stories were short, memorable, and covered all the bases of love, pride, folly, and forgiveness. Their rules were bite-sized: Don’t be a jerk. Don’t hurt other people or animals. Share what you have with others less fortunate. In other words, be nice. He decided to change the topic.
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
If we analyse the classes of life, we readily find that there are three cardinal classes which are radically distinct in function. A short analysis will disclose to us that, though minerals have various activities, they are not "living." The plants have a very definite and well known function-the transformation of solar energy into organic chemical energy. They are a class of life which appropriates one kind of energy, converts it into another kind and stores it up; in that sense they are a kind of storage battery for the solar energy; and so I define THE PLANTS AS THE CHEMISTRY-BINDING class of life. The animals use the highly dynamic products of the chemistry-binding class-the plants-as food, and those products-the results of plant-transformation-undergo in animals a further transformation into yet higher forms; and the animals are correspondingly a more dynamic class of life; their energy is kinetic; they have a remarkable freedom and power which the plants do not possess-I mean the freedom and faculty to move about in space; and so I define ANIMALS AS THE SPACE-BINDING CLASS OF LIFE. And now what shall we say of human beings? What is to be our definition of Man? Like the animals, human beings do indeed possess the space-binding capacity but, over and above that, human beings possess a most remarkable capacity which is entirely peculiar to them-I mean the capacity to summarise, digest and appropriate the labors and experiences of the past; I mean the capacity to use the fruits of past labors and experiences as intellectual or spiritual capital for developments in the present; I mean the capacity to employ as instruments of increasing power the accumulated achievements of the all-precious lives of the past generations spent in trial and error, trial and success; I mean the capacity of human beings to conduct their lives in the ever increasing light of inherited wisdom; I mean the capacity in virtue of which man is at once the heritor of the by-gone ages and the trustee of posterity. And because humanity is just this magnificent natural agency by which the past lives in the present and the present for the future, I define HUMANITY, in the universal tongue of mathematics and mechanics, to be the TIME-BINDING CLASS OF LIFE.
Alfred Korzybski (Manhood of Humanity: The Science and Art of Human Engineering (Classic Reprint))
The great systems are actually no more than brilliant tautologies. What advantage is it to know that the nature of being consists in the ‘will to live,’ in ‘idea,’ or in the whim of God or of Chemistry? A mere proliferation of words, subtle displacements of meanings. What is loathes the verbal embrace, and our innermost experience reveals us nothing beyond the privileged and inexpressible moment. Moreover, Being itself is only a pretension of Nothingness.
Emil M. Cioran (A Short History of Decay)
Harriet, that’s ridiculous,” Elizabeth had argued. “Men and women are both human beings. And as humans, we’re by-products of our upbringings, victims of our lackluster educational systems, and choosers of our behaviors. In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural. And it starts with two words: pink and blue. Everything skyrockets out of control from there.
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
Long story short, you will at least get that one unreasonable impulse to prove to yourself that that the invincibility and imperviousness that you feel during youth. It’s something tangible, something that can yield results like in chemistry lab or through gains in stocks. You want to get high from being at the cusp of adolescence; like the sweet smell of hookah that you know your neighbor smokes and you don’t know why it’s appealing. You know what I’m talking about.
Mara Joaquin (Lost in the Sky)
[The] structural theory is of extreme simplicity. It assumes that the molecule is held together by links between one atom and the next: that every kind of atom can form a definite small number of such links: that these can be single, double or triple: that the groups may take up any position possible by rotation round the line of a single but not round that of a double link: finally that with all the elements of the first short period [of the periodic table], and with many others as well, the angles between the valencies are approximately those formed by joining the centre of a regular tetrahedron to its angular points. No assumption whatever is made as to the mechanism of the linkage. Through the whole development of organic chemistry this theory has always proved capable of providing a different structure for every different compound that can be isolated. Among the hundreds of thousands of known substances, there are never more isomeric forms than the theory permits.
Nevil Vincent Sidgwick
It is a pretty structure, isn’t it? It makes you think of something solid, stable, well linked. In fact it happens in chemistry as in architecture that ‘beautiful’ edifices, that is symmetrical and simple, are also the most sturdy: in short, the same thing happens with molecules as with the cupolas of cathedrals of the arches of bridges. And it is also possible that the explanation is neither remote nor metaphysical: to say ‘beautiful’ is to say ‘desirable’, and ever since man has built he has wanted to build at the smallest expense and in the most durable fashion, and the aesthetic enjoyment he experiences when contemplating his work comes afterward. Certainly, it has not always been this way: there have been centuries in which ‘beauty’ was identified with adornment, the superimposed, the frills; but it is probable that they were deviant epochs and that the true beauty, in which every century recognises itself, is found in upright stones, ships’ hulls, the blade of an axe, the wing of a plane.
Primo Levi (The Periodic Table)
In a long and eventful life", the Doctor said eventually, "I have experienced nothing that I could not account for by the laws of physics, chemistry or biology. If a God or Gods exist, and I cannot rule out the possibility, then I can only presume that He, She or They take no active part in the lives of the many and various creatures that populate this extensive and wonderful universe of theirs". He picked a crumb of cheese from his plate and swallowed it. "In addition, I have seen countless races worship, countless Gods with attributes which are mutually incompatible, and each race believes itself to be following the one true faith. While I respect their beliefs, I would consider it arrogance for any race to try and impose their beliefs on me, and if I had a belief of my own then it would be equally arrogant of me to impose it on them. In short, sir, I am currently an agnostic, and by the time my life draws to its close, and I have travelled from one side of the universe to the other and seen every sight there is to see, I firmly expect to be an atheist".
Andy Lane (Doctor Who: The Empire of Glass)
When we encounter tiny groups of atoms, interesting questions and special rules come into play. Take water, for instance: what is the smallest possible ice cube? It has been discovered that you need at least 275 water molecules in a cluster before it can show ice-like properties, with about 475 molecules before it becomes truly ice. That is a cube with about eight H2O molecules along each edge. The importance of this kind of knowledge is that it helps us model the process of cloud formation in the atmosphere as well as understand how liquids freeze.
Peter Atkins (Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions))
Depending on their size and temperament, they were—and are—capable of delivering a joy I rarely accessed elsewhere. The mere sight of a doe-eyed golden retriever puppy or a massive, Sphinx-like Leonberger can temporarily alter my brain chemistry. To encounter a Great Pyrenees or a malamute feels to me like meeting a unicorn. That such creatures roam in our midst seems nothing short of magical. That such creatures might share our beds or lie on the sofa with us while we watch TV seems like proof that heaven is capable of dipping down and grazing the earth with the tip of its toe.
Meghan Daum (The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion)
For almost twenty years, one of the Brocks’ two new bacteria, Thermophilus aquaticus, remained a laboratory curiosity until a scientist in California named Kary B. Mullis realized that heat-resistant enzymes within it could be used to create a bit of chemical wizardry known as a polymerase chain reaction, which allows scientists to generate lots of DNA from very small amounts—as little as a single molecule in ideal conditions. It’s a kind of genetic photocopying, and it became the basis for all subsequent genetic science, from academic studies to police forensic work. It won Mullis the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1993.
Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
The Chemical Society of London was not founded until 1841 and didn’t begin to produce a regular journal until 1848, by which time most learned societies in Britain—Geological, Geographical, Zoological, Horticultural, and Linnaean (for naturalists and botanists)—were at least twenty years old and often much more. The rival Institute of Chemistry didn’t come into being until 1877, a year after the founding of the American Chemical Society. Because chemistry was so slow to get organized, news of Avogadro’s important breakthrough of 1811 didn’t begin to become general until the first international chemistry congress, in Karlsruhe, in 1860.
Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
Dear Mother and Dad: Since I left for college I have been remiss in writing and I am sorry for my thoughtlessness in not having written before. I will bring you up to date now, but before you read on, please sit down. You are not to read any further unless you are sitting down, okay? Well, then, I am getting along pretty well now. The skull fracture and the concussion I got when I jumped out the window of my dormitory when it caught on fire shortly after my arrival here is pretty well healed now. I only spent two weeks in the hospital and now I can see almost normally and only get those sick headaches once a day. Fortunately, the fire in the dormitory, and my jump, was witnessed by an attendant at the gas station near the dorm, and he was the one who called the Fire Department and the ambulance. He also visited me in the hospital and since I had nowhere to live because of the burntout dormitory, he was kind enough to invite me to share his apartment with him. It’s really a basement room, but it’s kind of cute. He is a very fine boy and we have fallen deeply in love and are planning to get married. We haven’t got the exact date yet, but it will be before my pregnancy begins to show. Yes, Mother and Dad, I am pregnant. I know how much you are looking forward to being grandparents and I know you will welcome the baby and give it the same love and devotion and tender care you gave me when I was a child. The reason for the delay in our marriage is that my boyfriend has a minor infection which prevents us from passing our pre-marital blood tests and I carelessly caught it from him. Now that I have brought you up to date, I want to tell you that there was no dormitory fire, I did not have a concussion or skull fracture, I was not in the hospital, I am not pregnant, I am not engaged, I am not infected, and there is no boyfriend. However, I am getting a “D” in American History, and an “F” in Chemistry and I want you to see those marks in their proper perspective. Your loving daughter, Sharon Sharon may be failing chemistry, but she gets an “A” in psychology.
Robert B. Cialdini (Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials))
Neither the idea of atoms nor the term itself was exactly new. Both had been developed by the ancient Greeks. Dalton’s contribution was to consider the relative sizes and characters of these atoms and how they fit together. He knew, for instance, that hydrogen was the lightest element, so he gave it an atomic weight of one. He believed also that water consisted of seven parts of oxygen to one of hydrogen, and so he gave oxygen an atomic weight of seven. By such means was he able to arrive at the relative weights of the known elements. He wasn’t always terribly accurate—oxygen’s atomic weight is actually sixteen, not seven—but the principle was sound and formed the basis for all of modern chemistry and much of the rest of modern science.
Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
a basic unit of measure in chemistry, which was named for Avogadro long after his death. It is the number of molecules found in 2.016 grams of hydrogen gas (or an equal volume of any other gas). Its value is placed at 6.0221367 × 1023, which is an enormously large number. Chemistry students have long amused themselves by computing just how large a number it is, so I can report that it is equivalent to the number of popcorn kernels needed to cover the United States to a depth of nine miles, or cupfuls of water in the Pacific Ocean, or soft drink cans that would, evenly stacked, cover the Earth to a depth of 200 miles. An equivalent number of American pennies would be enough to make every person on Earth a dollar trillionaire. It is a big number.
Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
Paced Breathing People who experience anxiety often breathe improperly. They take shallow breaths from their chests instead of deep breaths from their diaphragms. (The diaphragm is the muscle that separates your chest cavity from your abdominal cavity and that makes it possible for you to inhale and exhale.) Breathing from the chest can cause you to hyperventilate, which has a negative effect on your body’s chemistry. Hyperventilation does not only mean panting or gasping for air; it also includes yawning, holding your breath, and sighing. The symptoms of hyperventilation are similar to those associated with anxiety: shortness of breath, lightheadedness, faintness, tingling or numbness in your fingers and toes, and the feeling that you are walking around in a dream. If you deal with anxiety and begin to hyperventilate, it will make the situation even worse.
Heather Moehn (Social Anxiety (Coping With Series))
warm little pond” where Darwin supposed life began to the bubbling sea vents that are now the most popular candidates for life’s beginnings—but all this overlooks the fact that to turn monomers into polymers (which is to say, to begin to create proteins) involves what is known to biology as “dehydration linkages.” As one leading biology text puts it, with perhaps just a tiny hint of discomfort, “Researchers agree that such reactions would not have been energetically favorable in the primitive sea, or indeed in any aqueous medium, because of the mass action law.” It is a little like putting sugar in a glass of water and having it become a cube. It shouldn’t happen, but somehow in nature it does. The actual chemistry of all this is a little arcane for our purposes here, but it is enough to know that if you make monomers wet they don’t turn into polymers—except when creating life on Earth. How and why it happens then and not otherwise is one of biology’s great unanswered questions.
Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
READER’S REPORT From the Parent of a College Coed Dear Mother and Dad: Since I left for college I have been remiss in writing and I am sorry for my thoughtlessness in not having written before. I will bring you up to date now, but before you read on, please sit down. You are not to read any further unless you are sitting down, okay? Well, then, I am getting along pretty well now. The skull fracture and the concussion I got when I jumped out the window of my dormitory when it caught on fire shortly after my arrival here is pretty well healed now. I only spent two weeks in the hospital and now I can see almost normally and only get those sick headaches once a day. Fortunately, the fire in the dormitory, and my jump, was witnessed by an attendant at the gas station near the dorm, and he was the one who called the Fire Department and the ambulance. He also visited me in the hospital and since I had nowhere to live because of the burntout dormitory, he was kind enough to invite me to share his apartment with him. It’s really a basement room, but it’s kind of cute. He is a very fine boy and we have fallen deeply in love and are planning to get married. We haven’t got the exact date yet, but it will be before my pregnancy begins to show. Yes, Mother and Dad, I am pregnant. I know how much you are looking forward to being grandparents and I know you will welcome the baby and give it the same love and devotion and tender care you gave me when I was a child. The reason for the delay in our marriage is that my boyfriend has a minor infection which prevents us from passing our pre-marital blood tests and I carelessly caught it from him. Now that I have brought you up to date, I want to tell you that there was no dormitory fire, I did not have a concussion or skull fracture, I was not in the hospital, I am not pregnant, I am not engaged, I am not infected, and there is no boyfriend. However, I am getting a “D” in American History, and an “F” in Chemistry and I want you to see those marks in their proper perspective. Your loving daughter, Sharon Sharon may be failing chemistry, but she gets an “A” in psychology.
Robert B. Cialdini (Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials))
One of the most powerful tools for discovering structure is ‘X-ray diffraction’ or, because it is always applied to crystals of the substance of interest, ‘X-ray crystallography’. The technique has been a gushing fountain of Nobel prizes, starting with Wilhelm Röntgen’s discovery of X-rays (awarded in 1901, the first physics prize), then William and his son Laurence Bragg in 1915, Peter Debye in 1936, and continuing with Dorothy Hodgkin (1964), and culminating with Maurice Wilkins (but not Rosalind Franklin) in 1962, which provided the foundation of James Watson’s and Francis Crick’s formulation of the double-helix structure of DNA, with all its huge implications for understanding inheritance, tackling disease, and capturing criminals (a prize shared with Wilkins in 1962). If there is one technique that is responsible for blending biology into chemistry, then this is it. Another striking feature of this list is that the prize has been awarded in all three scientific categories: chemistry, physics, and physiology and medicine, such is the range of the technique and the illumination it has brought.
Peter Atkins (Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions))
His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. “You appear to be astonished,” he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.” “To forget it!” “You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.” “But the Solar System!” I protested. “What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently; “you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.” I was on the point of asking him what that work might be, but something in his manner showed me that the question would be an unwelcome one. I pondered over our short conversation, however, and endeavoured to draw my deductions from it. He said that he would acquire no knowledge which did not bear upon his object. Therefore all the knowledge which he possessed was such as would be useful to him. I enumerated in my own mind all the various points upon which he had shown me that he was exceptionally well-informed. I even took a pencil and jotted them down. I could not help smiling at the document when I had completed it. It ran in this way— SHERLOCK HOLMES—his limits. 1. Knowledge of Literature.—Nil. 2. Philosophy.—Nil. 3. Astronomy.—Nil. 4. Politics.—Feeble. 5. Botany.—Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening. 6. Geology.—Practical, but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them. 7. Chemistry.—Profound. 8. Anatomy.—Accurate, but unsystematic. 9. Sensational Literature.—Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century. 10. Plays the violin well. 11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman. 12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.
Arthur Conan Doyle (A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes, #1))
As the steak sizzled, she removed an envelope from her apron pocket. “While that’s cooking, I wanted to share with you all a letter I received from Nanette Harrison in Long Beach. Nanette writes, ‘Dear Mrs. Zott, I’m a vegetarian. It’s not for religious reasons—it’s just that I don’t think it’s very nice to eat living things. My husband says the body needs meat and I’m being stupid, but I just hate thinking an animal has given up its life for me. Jesus did that and look what happened to him. Sincerely yours, Mrs. Nanette Harrison, Long Beach, California.’ “Nanette, you’ve brought up an interesting point,” Elizabeth said. “What we eat has consequences for other living things. However, plants are living things too, and yet we rarely consider that they are still alive even as we chop them to bits, crush them with our molars, force them down our esophagi, and then digest them in our stomachs filled with hydrochloric acid. In short, I applaud you, Nanette. You think before you eat. But make no mistake, you’re still actively taking life to sustain your own. There is no way around this. As for Jesus, no comment.
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
Perhaps nowhere is modern chemistry more important than in the development of new drugs to fight disease, ameliorate pain, and enhance the experience of life. Genomics, the identification of genes and their complex interplay in governing the production of proteins, is central to current and future advances in pharmacogenomics, the study of how genetic information modifies an individual's response to drugs and offering the prospect of personalized medicine, where a cocktail of drugs is tailored to an individual's genetic composition. Even more elaborate than genomics is proteomics, the study of an organism's entire complement of proteins, the entities that lie at the workface of life and where most drugs act. Here computational chemistry is in essential alliance with medical chemistry, for if a protein implicated in a disease can be identified, and it is desired to terminate its action, then computer modelling of possible molecules that can invade and block its active site is the first step in rational drug discovery. This too is another route to the efficiencies and effectiveness of personalized medicine.
Peter Atkins (Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions))
As the steak sizzled, she removed an envelope from her apron pocket. “While that’s cooking, I wanted to share with you all a letter I received from Nanette Harrison in Long Beach. Nanette writes, ‘Dear Mrs. Zott, I’m a vegetarian. It’s not for religious reasons—it’s just that I don’t think it’s very nice to eat living things. My husband says the body needs meat and I’m being stupid, but I just hate thinking an animal has given up its life for me. Jesus did that and look what happened to him. Sincerely yours, Mrs. Nanette Harrison, Long Beach, California.’ “Nanette, you’ve brought up an interesting point,” Elizabeth said. “What we eat has consequences for other living things. However, plants are living things too, and yet we rarely consider that they are still alive even as we chop them to bits, crush them with our molars, force them down our esophagi, and then digest them in our stomachs filled with hydrochloric acid. In short, I applaud you, Nanette. You think before you eat. But make no mistake, you’re still actively taking life to sustain your own. There is no way around this. As for Jesus, no comment.” She turned and, jabbing the steak out of the pan, the dripping juices a bloody red, looked directly into the camera. “And now a word from our sponsor.
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
It had been a quiet few days for Hungry Paul since his Yahtzee conversation with Leonard, quiet days not being uncommon in his schedule. This had given him the opportunity to ponder the expansion and contraction of the universe as observed in localised form in the life of his best friend. Edwin Hubble, had he looked inside Leonard with his telescope, would have recorded that everything was just as the universe would ordain it. The thing is, for Hungry Paul the world was a complicated place, with people themselves being both the primary cause and chief victims of its complexity. He saw society as a sort of chemistry set, full of potentially explosive ingredients which, if handled correctly could be fascinating and educational, but which was otherwise best kept out of reach of those who did not know what they were doing. Though his life had been largely quiet and uneventful, his choices had turned out to be wise ones: he had already lived longer than Alexander the Great, and had fewer enemies, too. But he had now become awakened by the thought that, no matter how insignificant he was when compared to the night sky, he remained subject to the same elemental forces of expansion. The universe, it seemed, would eventually come knocking. And so it was that over a mid-morning scone he read a short article in the local freesheet with a sense of cosmic destiny.
Ronan Hession (Leonard and Hungry Paul)
Have you ever been swept away by a toxic lover who sucked you dry? I have. Bad men used to light me up like a Christmas tree. If I had a choice between the rebel without a cause and a nice guy in a sweater and outdoorsy shoes, you can imagine who got my phone number. Rebels and rogues are smooth (and somewhat untamed); they know the headwaiters at the best steak houses, ride fast European motorcycles, and start bar fights in your honor. In short, the rebel makes you feel really alive! It’s all fun and games until he screws your best friend or embezzles your life’s savings. You may be asking yourself how my pathetic dating track record relates to your diet. Simple. The acid—alkaline balance, which relates to the chemistry of your body’s fluids and tissues as measured by pH. The rebel/rogue = acid. The nice solid guy = alkaline. The solid guy gives you energy; he’s reliable and trustworthy. The solid guy calls you back when he says he will. He helps you clean your garage and does yoga with you. He’s even polite to your family no matter how whacked they are, and has the sexual stamina to rock your world. While the rebel can help you let your hair down, too much rebel will sap your energy. In time, a steady rebellious diet burns you out. But when we’re addicted to bad boys (junk food, fat, sugar, and booze), nice men (veggies and whole grains) seem boring. Give them a chance!
Kris Carr (Crazy Sexy Diet: Eat Your Veggies, Ignite Your Spark, And Live Like You Mean It!)
Metal atoms are bound together by metallic bonding. That is not just a tautology. The clue to its nature is the fact that all the metals lie towards the left-hand side of the Periodic Table where, as we have seen, the atoms of the elements have only a few electrons in their outermost cloud layers and which are readily lost. To envisage metallic bonding, think of all these outermost electrons as slipping off the parent atom and congregating in a sea that pervades the whole slab of atoms. The cations that are left behind lie in this sea and interact favourably with it. As a result, all the cations are bound together in a solid mass. That mass is malleable because, like an actual sea, it can respond readily to a shift in the positions of the cations in the mass when they are struck by a hammer. The electrons also allow the metal to be drawn out into a wire, by responding immediately to the relocation of the cations. As the electrons in the sea are not pinned down to particular atoms, they are mobile and can migrate through the solid in response to an electric field. Metals are lustrous because the electrons of the sea can respond to the shaking caused by the electric field of an incident ray of light, and that oscillation of the sea in turn generates light that we perceive as reflection. When we gaze into the metal coating of a mirror, we are watching the waves in the metal’s electron sea.
Peter Atkins (Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions))
I took a glass retort, capable of containing eight ounces of water, and distilled fuming spirit of nitre according to the usual method. In the beginning the acid passed over red, then it became colourless, and lastly again all red: no sooner did this happen, then I took away the receiver; and tied to the mouth of the retort a bladder emptied of air, which I had moistened in its inside with milk of lime lac calcis, (i.e. lime-water, containing more quicklime than water can dissolve) to prevent its being corroded by the acid. Then I continued the distillation, and the bladder gradually expanded. Here-upon I left every thing to cool, tied up the bladder, and took it off from the mouth of the retort.— I filled a ten-ounce glass with this air and put a small burning candle into it; when immediately the candle burnt with a large flame, of so vivid a light that it dazzled the eyes. I mixed one part of this air with three parts of air, wherein fire would not burn; and this mixture afforded air, in every respect familiar to the common sort. Since this air is absolutely necessary for the generation of fire, and makes about one-third of our common air, I shall henceforth, for shortness sake call it empyreal air, [literally fire-air] the air which is unserviceable for the fiery phenomenon, and which makes abut two-thirds of common air, I shall for the future call foul air [literally corrupted air].
Carl Wilhelm Scheele (Chemische Abhandlung von der Luft und dem Feuer (German Edition))
Carajo!" Paco says, throwing down his lunch. "They think they can buy a U-shaped shell, stuff it, and call it a taco, but those cafeteria workers wouldn't know taco meat from a piece of shit. That's what this tastes like, Alex." "You're makin' me sick, man," I tell him. I stare uncomfortably at the food I brought from home. Thanks to Paco everything looks like mierda now. Disgusted, I shove what's left of my lunch into my brown paper bag. "Want some of it?" Paco says with a grin as he holds out the shitty taco to me. "Bring that one inch closer to me and you'll be sorry," I threaten. "I'm shakin' in my pants." Paco wiggles the offending taco, goading me. He should seriously know better. "If any of that gets on me--" "What'cha gonna do, kick my ass?" Paco sings sarcastically, still shaking the taco. Maybe I should punch him in the face, knocking him out so I won't have to deal with him right now. As I have that thought, I feel something drop on my pants. I look down even though I know what I'll see. Yes, a big blob of wet, gloppy stuff passing as taco meat lands right on the crotch of my faded jeans. "Fuck," Paco says, his face quickly turning from amusement to shock. "Want me to clean it off for you?" "If your fingers get anywhere close to my dick, I'm gonna personally shoot you in the huevos," I growl through clenched teeth. I flick the mystery meat off my crotch. A big, greasy stain lingers. I turn back to Paco. "You got ten minutes to get me a new pair of pants." "How the hell am I s'posed to do that?" "Be creative." "Take mine." Paco stands and brings his fingers to the waistband of his jeans, unbuttoning right in the middle of the courtyard. "Maybe I wasn't specific enough," I tell him, wondering how I'm going to act like the cool guy in chem class when it looks like I've peed in my pants. "I meant, get me a new pair of pants that will fit me, pendejo. You're so short you could audition to be one of Santa Claus's elves." "I'm toleratin' your insults because we're like brothers." "Nine minutes and thirty seconds." It doesn't take Paco more than that to start running toward the school parking lot.
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
In high school, she’d been the loner fat girl and I’d been the asshole jock. There had always been something between us; we had gotten on so easily. I remember being both confused and upset that when I’d finally experienced that thing everyone called chemistry, it had been with her of all people.
Rose Fall (Heart: A Romantic Short Story Collection)
Anyone who doesn’t believe in chemistry is wrong. And anyone who settles for less sells themselves short.
Suzanne Redfearn (In an Instant)
Liz Gorman, a fiery redhead, had been one of the founding members of the Raven Brigade. During their first “mission”—a failed attempt to burn down a university chemistry lab—the police had picked up a code name on the scanner: CD. It was later revealed that the male members of the Brigade called her CD, short for Carpenter’s Dream, because she was “flat as a board and easy to screw.” Sixties radicals, for all their so-called progressive thoughts, were some of the world’s biggest sexists. Now the implants made sense. Everyone Myron had interviewed remembered one thing about “Carla”—her cup size. Liz Gorman had been famous for her flat chest—what better disguise than oversized breast implants? “The feds and cops are cooperating on this one,” Higgins said. “They’re trying to keep this quiet for a while.
Harlan Coben (Fade Away (Myron Bolitar, #3))
¡Carajoǃ” Paco says, throwing down his lunch. “They think they can buy a U-shaped shell, stuff it, and call it a taco, but those cafeteria workers wouldn’t know taco meat from a piece of shit. That’s what this tastes like, Alex.” “You’re makin’ me sick, man,” I tell him. I stare uncomfortably at the food I brought from home. Thanks to Paco everything looks like mierda now. Disgusted, I shove what’s left of my lunch into my brown paper bag. “Want some of it?” Paco says with a grin as he holds out the shitty taco to me. “Bring that one inch closer to me and you’ll be sorry,” I threaten. “I’m shakin’ in my pants.” Paco wiggles the offending taco, goading me. He should seriously know better. “If any of that gets on me--” “What’cha gonna do, kick my ass?” Paco sings sarcastically, still shaking the taco. Maybe I should punch him in the face, knocking him out so I won’t have to deal with him right now. As I have that thought, I feel something drop on my pants. I look down even though I know what I’ll see. Yes, a big blob of wet, gloppy stuff passing as taco meat lands right on the crotch of my faded jeans. “Fuck,” Paco says, his face quickly turning from amusement to shock. “Want me to clean it off for you?” “If your fingers come anywhere close to my dick, I’m gonna personally shoot you in the huevos,” I growl through clenched teeth. I flick the mystery meat off my crotch. A big, greasy stain lingers. I turn back to Paco. “You got ten minutes to get me a new pair of pants.” “How the hell am I s’posed to do that?” “Be creative.” “Take mine.” Paco stands and brings his fingers to the waistband of his jeans, unbuttoning right in the middle of the courtyard. “Maybe I wasn’t specific enough,” I tell him, wondering how I’m going to act like the cool guy in chem class when it looks like I’ve peed in my pants. “I meant, get me a new pair of pants that will fit me, pendejo. You’re so short you could audition to be one of Santa Claus’s elves.” “I’m toleratin’ your insults because we’re like brothers.” “Nine minutes and thirty seconds.” It doesn’t take Paco more than that to start running toward the school parking lot. I seriously don’t give a crap how I get the pants; just that I get ‘em before my next class. A wet crotch is not the way to show Brittany I’m a stud.
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
Alex whispers, “There’s a thin line between love and hate. Maybe you’re confusing your emotions.” I scoot away from him. “I wouldn’t bet on it.” “I would.” Alex’s gaze turns toward the door to the classroom. Through the window, his friend is waving to him. They’re probably going to ditch class. Alex grabs his books and stands. Mrs. Peterson turns around. “Alex, sit down.” “I got to piss.” The teacher’s eyebrows furrow and her hand goes to her hip. “Watch your language. And the last time I checked, you don’t need your books in order to go to the restroom. Put them back on the lab table.” Alex’s lips are tight, but he places the books back on the table. “I told you no gang-related items in my class,” Mrs. Peterson says, staring at the bandanna he’s holding in front of him. She holds out her hand. “Hand it over.” He glances at the door, then faces Mrs. Peterson. “What if I refuse?” “Alex, don’t test me. Zero tolerance. You want a suspension?” She wiggles her fingers, signaling to hand the bandana over immediately or else. Scowling, he slowly places the bandana in her hand. Mrs. Peterson sucks in her breath when she snatches the bandanna from his fingers. I screech, “Ohmygod!” at the sight of the big stain on his crotch. The students, one by one, start laughing. Colin laughs the loudest. “Don’t sweat it, Fuentes. My great-grandma has the same problem. Nothing a diaper won’t fix.” Now that hits home because at the mention of adult diapers, I immediately think of my sister. Making fun of adults who can’t help themselves isn’t funny because Shelley is one of those people. Alex sports a big, cocky grin and says to Colin, “Your girlfriend couldn’t keep her hands out of my pants. She was showin’ me a whole new definition of hand warmers, compa.” This time he’s gone too far. I stand up, my stool scraping the floor. “You wish,” I say. Alex is about to say something to me when Mrs. Peterson yells, “Alex!” She clears her throat. “Go to the nurse and…fix yourself. Take your books, because afterward you’ll be seeing Dr. Aguirre. I’ll meet you in his office with your friends Colin and Brittany.” Alex swipes his books off the table and exits the classroom while I ease back onto my stool. While Mrs. Peterson is trying to calm the rest of the class, I think about my short-lived success in avoiding Carmen Sanchez. If she thinks I’m a threat to her relationship with Alex, the rumors that are sure to spread today could prove deadly.
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
I’ll be hanged if I can understand how it concerns Evolution to get us out of a mere scrape.” “Out of all kinds of scrapes, my dear Brumm, Evolution has the power to deliver us. There is no conceivable scrape which is not a link in the great chain—in Chance, which is the empirical name for Evolution, and bears the same relation to it that alchemy bears to chemistry, and astrology to astronomy. And the last little scrape of all, death, is simply the charming means Evolution takes to get us out of the great big scrape, life. You will never be happy, my dear friend, until you submit to the Evolutionary will. If it were not so amusing, nothing would be more insufferable than the unanimity and persistency with which all men and kindreds and nations shout up into space, ‘What a scrape were in!’ It is the first thing the child says in its inarticulate way with the first breath of air it is able to employ. ‘Oh, what a scrape to be sure!’ And it is the last thing the man feels on his death-bed. And you will find that all the books and newspapers and music in the world are only expositions and sermons and fugues and variations on the one theme. ‘Oh, what a scrape!’ Now, it is my mission to change the world’s tune. I mean to teach it that scrape, luck, chance, is law, is Evolution, is the soul of the universe; and having brought man’s will into accord with the Evolutionary will, in a very short time it will come about that children will laugh with their first breath, as much as to say, ‘ What a delightful thing it is to come into the world.’ And on their death-beds men will cry, ‘How refreshing and noble it is to pass away,’ while all the books and newspapers and music of the world will cease to be a mere complaint, will cease—altogether, the books and newspapers, perhaps, and only glad music remain.
John Davidson (A Full and True Account of the Wonderful Mission of Earl Lavender, which Lasted One Night and One Day; with a History of the Pursuit of Earl Lavender and Lord Brumm by Mrs. Scamler and Maud Emblem)
In alchemy, Jung realized, he had found a precursor of his own Psychology. ‘The experiences of the alchemists were, in a sense, my experiences, and their world my world. This was, of course, a momentous discovery: I had stumbled upon the historical counterpart of my psychology of the unconscious’ (MDR 196). Hitherto, alchemy had been dismissed as no more than a crude anticipation of chemistry, but Jung believed that, in their efforts to turn base metals into gold, the alchemists were symbolically engaged in a process of psychic transformation. In other words, alchemy was a metaphor for individuation.
Anthony Stevens (Jung: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions Book 40))
The place is very strange, I don't know if I'm dreaming or not, but it's a place where silent, naked people walk with thick dust. No one looks at anyone and no one seems interested in anything and I don't know what this place means. The place I discovered after a long contemplation and these places I always discovered in my head, I discovered strange times and places after contemplation and the contents of creating my strangeness sometimes ugly, but its aesthetic is intrinsic. I looked at myself and found that I had different characteristics from them alone, but they did not pay attention to anything or anyone. I try to speak and my voice does not come out, but I hear the echo of what I want to say in the whole place, as if we were in a glass ball. Whatever I intend to do without moving my body, without commanding it. Was my previous will fulfilled when I was, when I was what? a human being Is volitional poetics achieved? To fly to beat physics, but who is fair to the chemistry and chemistry of the universe? He is the Lord of shedding whom I call Sha’ariel, who transforms beings into other beings and places them in other universes. He turns like a chameleon, into human, animal, wind, inanimate, light, .. I am in the land of processing creatures into experimental projects.
السعيد عبدالغني
Atoms, elements and molecules are three important knowledge in Physics, chemistry and Biology. mathematics comes where counting starts, when counting and measurement started, integers were required. Stephen hawking says integers were created by god and everything else is work of man. Man sees pattern in everything and they are searched and applied to other sciences for engineering, management and application problems. Physics, it is required understand the physical nature or meaning of why it happens, chemistry is for chemical nature, Biology is for that why it happened. Biology touch medicine, plants and animals. In medicine how these atoms, elements and molecules interplay with each other by bondage is being explained. Human emotions and responses are because of biochemistry, hormones i e anatomy and physiology. This physiology deals with each and every organs and their functions. When this atom in elements are disturbed whatever they made i e macromolecules DNA, RNA and Protein and other micro and macro nutrients and which affects the physiology of different organs on different scales and then diseases are born because of this imbalance/ disturb in homeostasis. There many technical words are there which are hard to explain in single para. But let me get into short, these atoms in elements and molecules made interplay because of ecological stimulus i e so called god. and when opposite sex meets it triggers various responses on body of each. It is also harmone and they are acting because of atoms inside elements and continuous generation or degenerations of cell cycle. There is a god cell called totipotent stem cell, less gods are pluripotent, multi potent and noni potent stem cells. So finally each and every organ system including brain cells are affected because of interplay of atoms inside elements and their bondages in making complex molecules, which are ruled by ecological stimulus i e god. So everything is basically biology and medicine even for animals, plants and microbes and other life forms. process differs in each living organisms. The biggest mystery is Brain and DNA. Brain has lots of unexplained phenomenon and even dreams are not completely understood by science that is where spiritualism/ soul touches. DNA is long molecule which has many applications as genetic engineering. genomics, personal medicine, DNA as tool for data storage, DNA in panspermia theory and many more. So everything happens to women and men and other sexes are because of Biology, Medicine and ecology. In ecology every organisms are inter connected and inter dependent. Now physics - it touch all technical aspects but it needs mathematics and statistics to lay foundation for why and how it happened and later chemistry, biology also included inside physics. Mathematics gave raise to computers and which is for fast calculation on any applications in any sciences. As physiological imbalances lead to diseases and disorders, genetic mutations, again old concept evolution was retaken to understand how new biology evolves. For evolution and disease mechanisms, epidemiology and statistics was required and statistics was as a data tool considered in all sciences now a days. Ultimate science is to break the atoms to see what is inside- CERN, but it creates lots of mysterious unanswerable questions. laws in physics were discovered and invented with mathematics to understand the universe from atoms. Theory of everything is a long search and have no answers. While searching inside atoms, so many hypothesis like worm holes and time travel born but not yet invented as far as my knowledge. atom is universe, and humans are universe they have everything that universe has. ecology is god that affects humans and climate. In business these computerized AI applications are trying to figure out human emotions by their mechanism of writing, reading, texting, posting on social media and bla bla. Arts is trying to figure out human emotions in art way.
Ganapathy K
As we have seen, enzymes are minute but powerful molecular machines, machines that carry out various sorts of chemistry at phenomenal speed and with extraordinary accuracy. Chapter 1 closed with a quotation from Frederick Gowland Hopkins, who suggested almost ninety years ago that it was ‘difficult to exaggerate the importance to biology, and to chemistry no less, of extended studies of enzymes and their action’. A prophetic statement indeed, but even Hopkins could not have dreamt of the sweeping impact of these amazing molecules on science, technology, medicine, and our understanding of life itself.
Paul Engel (Enzymes: A Very Short Introduction)
I want to share with you the thought that chemistry provides the infrastructure of the modern world. There is hardly an item of everyday life that is not furnished by it or based on the materials it has created. Take away chemistry and its functional arm the chemical industry and you take away the metals and other materials of construction, the semiconductors of computation and communication, the fuels of heating, power generation, and transport, the fabrics of clothing and furnishings, and the artificial pigments of our blazingly colourful world. Take away its contributions to agriculture and you let people die, for the industry provides the fertilizers and pesticides that enable dwindling lands to support rising populations. Take away its pharmaceutical wing and you allow pain through the elimination of anaesthetics and deny people the prospect of recovery by the elimination of medicines. Imagine a world where there are no products of chemistry (including pure water): you are back before the Bronze Age, into the Stone Age: no metals, no fuels except wood, no fabrics except pelts, no medicines except herbs, no methods of computation except with your fingers, and very little food.
Peter Atkins (Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions))
Whereas chemistry reaches down into physics for its explanations (and through physics further down into mathematics for its quantitative formulation), it reaches upwards into biology for many of its most extraordinary applications. That should not be surprising, for biology is merely an elaboration of chemistry. Before biologists explode in indignation at that remark, which might seem akin to claiming that sociology is an elaboration of particle physics, let me be precise. Organisms are built from atoms and molecules, and those structures are explained by chemistry. Organisms function, that is, are alive, by virtue of the complex network of reactions taking place within them, and those reactions are explained by chemistry. Organisms reproduce by making use of molecular structures and reactions, which are both a part of chemistry. Organisms respond to their environment, such as through olfaction and vision, by changes in molecular structure, and thus those responses—all our five or so senses—are elaborations of chemistry. Even that hypermacroscopic phenomenon, evolution and the origin of species, can be regarded as an elaborate working out of the consequences of the Second Law of thermodynamics, and is thus an aspect of chemistry. Some organisms, I have in mind principally human beings, cogitate on the nature of the world, and the mental processes that underlie Chemistry and are manifest as these cogitations are due to elaborate networks of chemical reactions. Thus, biology is indeed an elaboration of chemistry. I shall not press the view, whatever I actually think, that all matters of interest to biologists, such as animal behaviour in general, are also merely elaborated chemistry, but confine myself to the assertion that all the structures, responses, and processes of organisms are chemical. Chemistry thus pervades biology, and has contributed immeasurably to our understanding of organisms.
Peter Atkins (Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions))
In 1799, the British chemist Humphry Davy was experimenting with different gases, or ‘airs’, at the Pneumatic Institution for Inhalation Gas Therapy in Bristol, searching for treatments for tuberculosis and other respiratory ailments. In what seems to have been a time-honoured tradition, Davy experimented on himself, by inhaling his new discoveries to judge their effects. Having synthesized some nitrous oxide, he inhaled a few breaths and found it produced a sensation of euphoria. He later found that nitrous oxide had analgesic properties which temporarily relieved dental pain and headache. Davy recorded in his notebook that nitrous oxide might prove useful in surgery, but thereafter became more interested in its recreational effects, and gave it its common name, ‘laughing gas’. No-one seems to have paid any attention to the idea that nitrous oxide might permit painless surgery. Davy and his co-workers at the Pneumatic Institution invited distinguished visitors to inhale nitrous oxide to experience its pleasurable effects. These demonstrations were soon repeated by students of medicine and chemistry, and then eventually by carnival showmen in both Britain and America. It was to be almost half a century before nitrous oxide was to take its place as a general anaesthetic.
Aidan O'Donnell (Anaesthesia: A Very Short Introduction)
Helene's interest in economics had waned considerably over the years. More and more, the theories that tried to explain economic phenomena, to predict their developments, appeared almost equally inconsistent and random. She was more and more tempted to liken them to pure and simple charlatanism; it was even surprising, she occasionally thought, that they gave a Nobel Prize for economics, as if this discipline could boast the same methodological seriousness, the same intellectual rigor, as chemistry, or physics. And her interest in teaching had also waned considerably. On the whole, young people no longer interested her much. Her students were at such a terrifyingly low intellectual level that, sometimes, you had to wonder what had pushed them into studying in the first place. The only reply, she knew in her heart of hearts, was that they wanted to make money, as much money as possible; aside from a few short-term humanitarian fads, that was the only thing that really got them going. Her professional life could thus be summarized as teaching contradictory absurdities to social-climbing cretins, even if she avoided formulating it to herself in terms that stark.
Michel Houellebecq (La carte et le territoire)
So, here is my “open letter to myself: today, a loser, but tomorrow, probably not:” If you are reading this, it is because you are within ______ of your loss limit today. Let’s slow down and consider how we got here. There are three ways this usually happens. If you got here because you lost track of your risk on a trade or a number of trades, you are just an idiot and I can’t help you. It is also possible that you just aren’t seeing the market clearly today, for whatever reason. Think hard about that. If either of those things are true, maybe you should pack it in and just go home. Tomorrow is a new day. However, it is more likely that today’s market is not the kind of market that plays to your strengths. You have a specific skill set, and within this realm you are probably as good as anyone out there. You understand the ebb and flow of a trending market, and how to press trades in those markets to maximum advantage. You usually don’t get shaken out by noise—you can hold trades in this kind of market better than almost anyone else… and, more often than not, you catch the turn at the end so you know when to get out. You do need to remember that maybe 1 in 5 trading days really rewards this style of trading. Chances are, today is not one of those days or you wouldn’t be reading this right now. What do you do now? Well, first of all take a deep breath and go for a short walk. Now. You are not going to make a brilliant trade in the next 15 seconds. You do not have to be here. In fact, your brain chemistry is compromised so you aren’t quite in your right mind—you cannot make good decisions right now. There is a really good chance the next trade you make will be your last one for the day, and then you can sit there and think about what an idiot you are for the rest of the day. Not pleasant or productive, so go for that walk right now. When you come back to the screen, the right course of action is to chip away at this loss. Think carefully about your next trading decision. You are going to be tempted to put on a lot of risk to try to make a big dent in your loss, but you know that almost never works. On a day you’re really in sync with the market, you can recover this loss in a single trade in a few minutes, but this clearly is not that day or you wouldn’t be reading this right now. Make a few ticks on small size and then use that cushion to take larger risk. Make $10 at first… $5 is even ok. Green is good. Hit singles, not home runs.
Adam Grimes (The Art and Science of Trading: Course Workbook)
Dear Mother and Dad: Since I left for college I have been remiss in writing and I am sorry for my thoughtlessness in not having written before. I will bring you up to date now, but before you read on, please sit down. You are not to read any further unless you are sitting down, okay? Well, then, I am getting along pretty well now. The skull fracture and the concussion I got when I jumped out the window of my dormitory when it caught on fire shortly after my arrival here is pretty well healed now. I only spent two weeks in the hospital and now I can see almost normally and only get those sick headaches once a day. Fortunately, the fire in the dormitory, and my jump, was witnessed by a worker at the gas station near the dorm, and he was the one who called the Fire Department and the ambulance. He also visited me in the hospital and since I had nowhere to live because of the burnt out dormitory, he was kind enough to invite me to share his apartment with him. It’s really a basement room, but it’s kind of cute. He is a very fine boy and we have fallen deeply in love and are planning to get married. We haven’t got the exact date yet, but it will be before my pregnancy begins to show. Yes, Mother and Dad, I am pregnant. I know how much you are looking forward to being grandparents and I know you will welcome the baby and give it the same love and devotion and tender care you gave me when I was a child. The reason for the delay in our marriage is that my boyfriend has a minor infection which prevents us from passing our pre-marital blood tests and I carelessly caught it from him. Now that I have brought you up to date, I want to tell you that there was no dormitory fire, I did not have a concussion or skull fracture, I was not in the hospital, I am not pregnant, I am not engaged, I am not infected, and there is no boyfriend. However, I am getting a “D” in American History, and an F in Chemistry, and I want you to see those marks in their proper perspective. Your loving daughter, Sharon Author’s note: Sharon may be failing chemistry, but she gets an A in psychology.
Robert B. Cialdini (Influence, New and Expanded: The Psychology of Persuasion)
She might be on some mission to play with fire and stick it to her father, but it’s her own rebellion against the hand she herself was personally dealt that fuels her. In that, we’re alike. In that, she’s like us. Ensnared by her in that short time, realization struck—Cecelia Horner is filled to the fucking brim with untapped potential. There’s a sort of power brewing within her that not even she is aware of. That’s what I saw, felt, and rang through me with absolute certainty. Not her age, beauty, or our undeniable chemistry, or even the danger she presents to us. The realization was so visceral that it had the hairs on my neck rising. Now that I’ve seen it, it can’t be denied.
Kate Stewart (One Last Rainy Day: The Legacy of a Prince (Ravenhood Legacy, #1))
This,’ answered Ezza gravely, ‘is not the costume of an Englishman, but of the Italian of the future.’ ‘In that case,’ remarked Muscari, ‘I confess I prefer the Italian of the past.’ ‘That is your old mistake, Muscari,’ said the man in tweeds, shaking his head; ‘and the mistake of Italy. In the sixteenth century we Tuscans made the morning: we had the newest steel, the newest carving, the newest chemistry. Why should we not now have the newest factories, the newest motors, the newest finance – and the newest clothes?’ ‘Because they are not worth having,’ answered Muscari. ‘You cannot make Italians really progressive; they are too intelligent. Men who see the short cut to good living will never go by the new elaborate roads.
G.K. Chesterton (The Complete Father Brown Stories)
Protein engineering has moved from a wary adventure on the part of a few pioneering groups in the 1980s to a routine tool used around the world today on a vast range of targets, and with immense power for fine-tuning the properties of enzymes and other proteins for practical applications. In particular, enzyme catalysis has at last gained widespread acceptance as a tool for chemistry, and, because enzyme catalysis avoids the need for high temperatures and pressures and toxic waste streams, it has become the basis of what is now generally known as ‘green chemistry’. One recent indicator of this remarkable shift in the relationship between enzymology and mainstream chemistry was the share in the 2018 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for Professor Frances Arnold at Caltech who has in recent years pioneered major advances in the methodology for efficient development of novel biocatalysts.
Paul Engel (Enzymes: A Very Short Introduction)
Does my dog love me, or does he just want a treat?” A professor who is an expert in climate change—not dogs—recently asked me that question. I’ve often asked it myself. Short answer: your dog really does love you. Part of the reason is: because you are kind. If you were abusive, your dog would fear you. And they might still love you, out of duty or need—not so different from many people trapped in abusive relationships. But to answer the question directly: what we know about dogs’ brains, their brain chemistry, and the changes to their brains caused by domestication tells us that yes, your dog loves you. A dog’s ability to feel love for humans comes partly from the love wolves have for wolves, partly from the genetic changes of their domesticated ancestry. In dogs, we’ve bred the people we wish we could be: loyal, hardworking, watchful, fiercely protective, intuitive, sensitive, affectionate, helpful to those in need. No matter how they originated, their feelings are real to them. Your dog genuinely loves you, as you, in your domesticated state, activating the deep, old parts of your brain, love your dog.
Carl Safina (Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel)
The crucial consideration, however, is where reliable solutions to the world’s problems will come from if it is not further development of chemistry. Chemistry holds the key to the enhancement of almost every aspect of our daily lives, from the cradle to the grave and all points in between. It has provided the material foundation of all our comforts, not only in health but in illness too, and there is no reason to suppose that it has reached its zenith. It contributes to our communications, both virtual and physical, for it provides the materials along which our electrons and photons travel in the complex network of patterns and interactions that result in computation. Moreover, it develops our fuels, rendering them more efficiently combustible and through catalysis minimizing their noxious products, and helps in the migration from fossil fuels to renewable sources, such as in the development of photovoltaic substances. Chemistry is the only solution to the problems it causes in the environment, be it in earth, air, or water.
Peter Atkins (Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions))
While we are in this embarrassingly negative corner of chemistry, I cannot avoid that other great pointed finger, the one directed at the environmental damage laid at the subject’s door, or at least at its drains. It is impossible to deny that the unwanted effluent of the chemical plant has wrought ecological havoc. Ever since Perkin’s factories turned the nearby canals red, green, and yellow according to the manufacturing priorities of the day, mankind’s aspiration for its own betterment has been at an environmental cost. In fact, the green shoots of environmental pollution, if that is not too ironical a term, can be traced back to the Greeks and Romans, for analysis of ice cores laid down in those eras show traces of the consequences of metal working. The way forward is either legal or chemical. The legal constrains by the prospect of punishment; the chemical avoids by elimination at source. The latter, always the better mode of action, depends on developments of chemistry itself and has inspired the politico-environmento-chemical movement of green chemistry. In broad terms, green chemistry aims to minimize the impact of chemical manufacturing processes on the environment by strict guidelines about the use of materials and the elimination of waste.
Peter Atkins (Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions))