The Right Chemistry: Life, love and chemistry

First Draft Hertford August 2003
John Courtneidge
Net-published 14 March 2014

Objective

To interweave a collection of commentaries about life, love and community, along with an introduction to, and development of contemporary issues in, chemistry.  With bangs!

Threads

Poetry, popular music (Beatles?), locations, history and personalities. Chemistry as experience. Home experiments?

Programme Theme Outlines

Programme 1: ‘What’s It All About Alfie?’ Life, love and chemistry

Atoms, air, fire.

Atoms, molecules, marriage, human relationships, co-operation, love.

Melting/freezing/change types

The Greek atomists and John Dalton. Lavoisier, Davy, and their wife. Greece, Manchester, London and Paris

Programme 2: ‘Out of Darkness, Light’: Planets, Water and Fire

Fish, clouds, emergence, evolution and paradigm. Volcanoes

Sulphur, sulphuric acid. Limestone, acid rain.

Programme 3: ‘You, me, we, us’: Community, life, co-operation

Boiling eggs, building people, proteins, DNA, hydrogen bonds, subtlety, music.

Programme 4: ‘Family, community’: The Periodic Table

Order out of chaos, entropy, Free Energy, predictability. Revolution and paradigm.

Gibbs, Bolzmann, Mendeleef

Programme 5: ‘Growing Up, Growing Wiser’

Change, complexity, truth and order. Reaction rates, equilibrium.

Bond breaking and making – growing up together, breaking up is hard to do.

The 18th Hole at St Andrews.

Programme 6: ‘Violence, War, Peace’: The Enlightenment

Electricity, atom Bombs, solar power

Faraday, Fredrick Soddy, Pliny

Metals, Atomic structure, ionic bonding, theft, money and profit.

Oil, coal, gas, cars, trams, WWI

Quantum mechanics, Rutherford, Heisenburg, Los Alamos, Hiroshima

Programme 7: ‘The Enlightenment Part II’: Awareness, Consciousness, Gaia

Silicon, communication, internets, swarming, co-operation, immanence, poetry, love.

Programme 8: ‘And let There Be Light’: Wholosophy and connectedness

Light/energy/matter equivalence Einstein’s equation. Max Plank, the Mystics.

Wave particle duality. One in all/all in one.

Photochemistry, helium and the sun. Fireflies. Organic peroxides, fire, human heeds. The planet’s needs. Food, photosynthesis, life, future.