Field of Science

Pauling vs Woodward: It's on

Some day they will hopefully make a video about this along the lines of Einstein vs Hawking or Hayek vs Keynes. For now an imperfect beginning will have to suffice (with apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan, of course. Oh, and Tom Lehrer too).

Pauling:

I am the very model of the greatest chemist ever...
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the bonds of aluminum, and I quote the distances dihedral,
From quantum to quark, in order categorical;
I'm very well acquainted too with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About the binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news,
And with many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.
 
Woodward:
I am the very model of the greatest chemist ever...
You may have won two Nobel Prizes
But look at me, I am full of architectural surprises
I make chlorophyll out of tar and sand,
And assemble ferrocene with my left hand.
On nitric acid I can lecture for three hours hard,
And inspire a new unit of time, the venerable milli-Woodward.
You may think you know calculus and all things quantum,
But you don't know the Woodward-Hoffmann rules (trust me, you'll want 'em). 

2 comments:

  1. I request this in rap form, a la "Keynes and Hayek."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I do too! Never would I entrust a task like that to a hip hop Luddite such as myself.

      Delete

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