Heroes and Idols
My heroes are a rather strange bunch.
I mean some of my youth heroes are comics heroes, like Dare Devil, the X-Men, Bernard Prince, Prof. Mortimer, Corto Maltese and a lot more.
Some are the heroes from the novels I read.
Others are extraordinary people. Real people.
Well, a man who has won two Nobel Prizes is extraordinary enough.
His was the first chemistry BOOK I owned (now I can only find the paperback version on sale).
My dad gave it to me while I was in high school.
What amazed me was the simplicity he used to explain things.
Back then I used to love math and physics but I didn’t quite like chemistry.
Today I am a chemist. That book, my hero’s chemistry book, changed my opinion on chemistry. Hell! That book changed my life.
For those who don’t know already who I am talking about, this man's name was Linus Pauling.
posted by DCveR at 8:50 AM
16 Comments:
Is this book something the non-chemist could read and follow?
I shouldn't admit this to you but I was such a dismal failure in high school chemistry. I did get C's, but only because the chemistry teacher tutored me after school (hey, he was cute...but trith told I never really "got" it. Would you believe our physics teacher was named "Mr. Quark?" No Really...that WAS his real name.
The Vitamin C man!!
[One of my heroes: Helen Keller. Another one: my father's mother.]
Chemistry was a real pain in the bottom ;) for me. I hate it. It's a matter of my teacher in elementary school (yes, I had chemistry in elementary school [13-15 year old students]). I still hate her and she's a real anti-idol for me. Hehehe - I made her a joke once. We had test in which we had to count those strange quotations with arrows :). I was very weak with this. I counted it once but I thought I made a mistake so I counted it second time. The result was different so I left both versions marking them with asterisk and on the bottom of page I have written 'please cross the wrong one' :D I received mark 1 (we have marks 1 to 6 with 1 is the worst, 5 is the best and 6 for extraordinary knowledge).
I was horrid at Chemistry. I was good at the male/female chemistry thing though.
; 0
kris: This is a school book, from our teaching system I'd say high school level, I guess it shouldn't be too different from the US. It has all the basic chemistry stuff, though even through college it can be used as a reference, the basis is always needed. And the way this guy explained things is pretty easy to understand. Oh, and I have to admire the courage of Mr. Quark, I bet everybody makes jokes on him all the time. Or maybe not, it was a long long time ago, right? ;)
isis: Maybe your problem was the same as mine, things didn't make sense. But they actually do make sense, some teachers however are unable to explain things properly. I’ll go check what suggestion pleased you as soon as I check the rest of the comments here. No need to thank. :)
GG: That is the one!!! This guy really was great, he was the kind of scientist that feels science must be used to the common good, and not the common good of a few but of all mankind. Helen Keller I know about, I think she was awesome. You father’s mother? Can we get a post about her?
shyha: I must confess my ignorance about your teaching system. Amazingly or not I’ve never talked about school with my friends from Krakow. 13-15 are the ages for the first years of high school here. At that age I didn’t like chemistry either. LOL
phoenix: Good Half is a geologist, so I guess I can say geo-chemistry is one of my passions now…
I don't have any heroes which is sad but whatever.
What did you think of the X-Men movies? I didn't really like them. And while I love Halle Berry she was horribly cast. The third one better be good.
I will one day write about me father mother...my mother keeps saying she's a hero, she achieved despite extreme poverty.
You are a chemist and didn't like chemistry when you were young? Wow, Linus Paulin really helped, eh?
bent: I like the movies, but they made a big mess of the original stories. As usual the books are better than the movies, in spite of the fact they are comics. Also most of the actors are awful in both movies. I guess if I weren’t such a Marvel fan in my youth to begin with I probably wouldn’t pay much attention to the movies. Oh, and Hale Berry with her killer look for storm is just nonsense. Storm was the shy girl… the part is all wrong.
GG: The reason I didn’t like it earlier was that some things seemed un-natural, not logical. It made no sense to me because things were explained in a wrong way. I never liked to accept things just because the teacher said so. Pauling’s book made the difference in the sense that his explanations made me understand the how and why.
isis: Hehe, already read it, thanks. Unfortunately dried cranberries are hard to find here, I’ll have to ask Good Half to send me some before I can try it.
Wow, sounds like I'm not the only one here who had a bad start with chemistry. I flat out failed it in high school-- mainly because I was LAZY. So looking back on my college career it seems kind of strange that I kept taking chemistry courses, all the way through the second semester of organic chem. And I got good at it. I have absolutely no use for it now, but I'm probably the only linguist in the world who recognizes a Diels-Alder reaction when he sees one.
viking: You never know when it comes in handy to know how to create an aromatic ring! Though for most people the answer is probably never.
I kicked ass in Chem 101. I loved creating toxic brews on the bunsen burner and blowing shit up. ::sigh:: Man I could have been a great Chemist.
DC: Thank you! I could not have said it better. The people who LOVE the movies seem to be the ones who never read any of the stories.
Mystique's costume was awesome, imho.
bees knees: Everybody likes fireworks. LOL
bent: Special effects have entered a whole new era, some years ago they could not have such a Mystique, but you are right, it is awesome.
In my class, we never got to actually mix stuff in the lab but only rarely. Certainly you were expected to get the theory first. I do remember what Mr. Cunningham (the cute chem teacher) said at the beginning of the year--that everyone should learn the basics of chemistry no matter what their field of study later, because it explains the basis of life itself. I never forgot that. Mr. Quark looked like his name-- a little wild eyed with flyaway grey hair. Great teacher..The kids loved him.
Oh! One other thing I wanted to suggest..unrelated to chemistry. Can you translate some more Portuguese poems? When you get the time of course. :)
kris: As soon as I get the time. :)
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