There is Satisfaction in Beauty and Accomplishment

            Right after the close of World War II, I was pursuing a PhD in Organic Chemistry at Cornell University. My major professor was A. T. Blomquist, whose specialty at that time was large ring molecules.

            In the field of organic chemistry, carbon atoms can align themselves in chains called acyclics, or in rings called cyclics. In the case of cyclics, the preferred ring size is six carbon atoms, with such common compounds as benzene, toluene and cyclohexane. Blomquist's questions were: can we make compounds with more than six carbons in a ring: if so, how; and will the compounds have any special properties?

            Several graduate students, including me, were involved in this project. Suffice to say that I was successful, finding also that the large ring compounds had few special properties, other than odor.

            Toward the close of my graduate program, I had a job interview with Dr. Ralph Connor of the Rohm & Haas Company. I told Dr. Connor that I was tired of research which seem to have no significant basis for practicality. He told me he had just the job for me in a development laboratory where I would be m involved in developing new products of commercial use, and I started my Rohm & Haas career.

            It is now 65 years later, and I've had no regrets in pursuing my career based on the practicality of chemistry.

            However, I recently read an article by Sam Kean entitled, "Tiny Productions" in the Spring 2014 issue of Chemical Heritage. Kean's  article looks at the other side of the picture. Rather than summarize what he had to say, it seems more appropriate to quote him directly.

            "Whenever I give talks about the periodic table, the most common questions I get asked is why scientists bother. What good is making ultra-heavy elements?"

            "Most people who ask are genuinely curious. Every so often, though, someone starts to sputter, bordering on anger. Their question is really a challenge. Sometimes it's the money that bothers them: they see science is a zero-sum game, and every dime not spent on, say. medical cures is a dime wasted. But even when I explain the trickle-down effects of such research (it could lead to new ways of producing medical isotopes), they're not placated. Really, it's the willful disregard for practicality that eats at them. The idea that scientists might dedicate their lives to creating something that does not have, and will never have, any practical value almost offends them.".

            "In the end I usually smile and say we need to embrace the uselessness of these elements, even celebrate it. In a utilitarian calculus you can't justify the production of ultraheavy, ultrarare elements -- except to say that they add to the sum of human knowledge and happiness, which is no small thing. Even more than that, the creation of them satisfies a human need to push beyond our natural boundaries, to explore as much of our little pocket of the universe as possible. It takes all types to make a periodic table, and if some of those elements are as rare and as fleeting as an ivory billed woodpecker, they're all the more beautiful for it."