Editorials of a Scientist Political
I received a package from the across the Atlantic last week. It contained a small pressure transducer which, in it itself, isn’t very interesting. But what was odd was the number of layers of packaging it had. It had 6 separate bags and envelopes as well as a piece of foam.
At what point does precaution give way to fetish? They could learn something from Amazon. When in doubt, use those green air pillows and a box.
I have been an enthusiastic user of RPN calculators since high school, when Gerry Ford was president. Of course I refer to those made by Hewlett-Packard. My first was the HP-25C. The beauty of the RPN system with its 4 register stack was that it could do fairly elaborate chain calculations without the need for parentheses or an equal key. It is quite intuitive to many of us and was a pleasure to use.
But, alas! The HP RPN calculator has largely gone out of fashion it seems. Only a few models remain on the market and several are financial calculators. The HP-12C financial calculator is a wholly inadequate substitute for a scientific calculator. My 12C now sits in the desk drawer with unused pens and paper clips. All seems lost for the RPN tribe.
Or so I thought. It turns out that there is a manufacturer of Hewlett-Packard RPN clones called SwissMicros. These folks have taken the RPN baton and are running with it. Hero’s, I call them. They knew a good product when they saw it and have saved the day by manufacturing a clone that seems nearly indistinguishable from the corresponding HP unit.
I recently purchased the HP-15C clone called the DM15L. It has the look and heft of the 15C. My use thus far has been cursory, but I look forward to exploring the features. So, here is a shout out to SwissMicros!
One of the safety seminars I teach is on the general topic of reactive hazards. There is a bit of a challenge to this because the idea is to cultivate informed caution rather than allow broadband fear to rule. It is challenging because my class is generally populated with non-chemist plant operators or other support staff. Out in the world the word “chemical” is generally taken to be an epithet and indicative of some malign influence. We who work with chemicals are in a position to bear witness to the reality of chemistry in our lives and to speak calmly and reasonably about it, without crass cheerleading.
Here is how I look at this. There are hazards and there are dangers. A hazard is something that can cause harm if it was to be fully expressed by way of physical contact with people or certain objects, unbounded access to an ignition source, exposure to air, etc. A critical feature of the hazard definition is that there are layers of protection preventing undesired contact. Hazards can be contained. A contained hazard is safer to be around than an uncontained hazard.
An uncontained hazard is that which can cause harm without the interference of effective layers of protection. A hungry tiger in a cage is hazardous in that there is the potential for trouble if the cage is breached. Being openly exposed to that tiger is what I’ll call dangerous.
Likewise, a stable chemical in a bottle has a physical layer of protection around it. A policy on the use of that bottled chemical constitutes a concentric administrative layer of protection. The bottle sitting in a proper cabinet within a room with limited access has more layers of protection. The policy of selling that chemical only to qualified buyers is a further layer of protection.
Egg white to which has been added several drops of conc H2SO4 (bottom) and 50 % caustic (top). Two minutes have elapsed. The point of this demo is to show what might happed to a cornea on contact with these reagents. The clouding is irreversible. People remember demonstrations.
It is possible to work around contained hazards safely and most of us do this outside of work without giving it much thought. Hazardous energy is exploited by most of us in the form of moving automobiles, spinning jet turbines, rotating machinery of all kinds, compressed gases and springs, and flammable liquids. Safe operation around these hazards is crucial to the conduct of civilization right down to our daily lives.
It is very easy for experts to frighten the daylights out of people by an unfortunate choice of words or simply dwelling on the hazardous downside too much. Users of technology should always be versed in the good and bad elements as a matter of course.
Risk can be defined as probability times consequence. So, to reduce risk one can reduce probability, diminish undesired consequences, or both. This is the purpose of LOPA, or Layers of Protection Analysis. LOPA can provide a quantitative basis for safety policy. The video below will explain.
Designing for tolerable risk is something that all of us in industry must come to grips with.
There are many axiomatic statements to be made about the workplace. I’ll start with this:
Axiom # 1: If there is a hole, someone will fall in it.
The meaning of “hole” can vary a great deal, from a specific system weakness to an actual hole in the floor or ground. I’ve witnessed people falling into both. I think you could argue that Axiom 1 is an example of Murphy’s Law. But the ultimate origin seems to trace back to Proverbs 26:27.
My favorite corollary:
Things are never so bad that they cannot get a whole lot worse.
This sentiment was famously uttered by Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen. Countries which have been invaded by another have a special understanding of this notion.
Of course none of this is new, just crystal-clear to me this day.
The water tank heater sat submerged and frozen in place as Gramps and I crunched our way towards it in the snow. It was a circular wooden tank, grey with age and made of moss-bearded, vertical staves held in place with a rusty iron ring. It sat in the fence line, part in the barnyard and part out. The fence traced across the farmyard to a gothic red barn which sat in stony silence on the hillside. In the inky dark before sunrise a dozen angus cattle snuffled, visible shadow-like against the snow packed ground in the low moonlight.
Gramps carried a gunnysack of corn cobs and a bucket of coal. I carried a newspaper and a metal oil can sloshing with kerosene. Gramps dumped the cobs in the tank furnace, splashed some kerosene on the cobs, then covered them with coal. Taking the newspaper he rolled it into a tube, struck a match and lit one end. As the paper flared I could see his cold and weathered face. His hat with ear flaps sat low and snug over an unshaven face, his nose dripping from the cold. Gramp’s well worn overcoat was zipped tightly over his striped coveralls with pantlegs tucked inside zippered rubber overshoes. He dropped the burning paper onto the fuel mix and closed the lid.
We made our way from the tank to the barn where we dropped hay from the upper level hay mound, down the chute to ground level. The cattle, now faintly lit in the bluish morning twilight were eagerly snuffling through the parted leaves of baled hay. Making sure to gather up the twine lest the cattle eat it and sicken, we left the stillness of a barn stacked with a summer season of hay bales and made for the house.
As we crunched past the water tank, now visible under the yawning orange sky, the sooty smokestack of the tank heater belched acrid coal smoke while the light of red embers escaped through pinholes etched by the fire of 30 winters toil. Soon there would be water for the cattle to sip.
Walking a few paces behind my grandfather I looked at him in admiration. Doing chores in the frigid morning darkness seven days a weeks takes dedication. Did I have such stamina, I wondered? After 45 winters I’m still not sure.
Larry J. Westrum
8/19/18
On a recent vacation trip to the Puget Sound area I managed to take a public tour of the Boeing manufacturing facility in Everett, WA. They don’t give away the tour- it costs $25 for adults and lasts about 90 minutes. For cash you get a movie highlighting the history of Boeing and a trip to a few mezzanines overlooking the 787 Dreamliner and 747 manufacturing areas. And just like Disney, you exit the attraction tour through the gift shop.
The first thing you notice is that security is very stringent. No phones, bags or purses, etc., once the tour begins. They are an important military contractor after all. As technically savvy as they may be though, the communication level of the tour guide was roughly 6-7th grade. The reason might be the wide range of visitor ages and nationalities. One Asian visitor on our bus wore a blue track suit bearing the name “Mongolia”.
It is easy to forget just how brilliant the US is and has long been in the broader aerospace world. Of course, other countries have developed advanced aerospace platforms, and produced their share of talent too, notably France, England, Germany and Russia. But one must admit that considerable advancement has happened here for some reason. A broad industrial base with access to raw materials and capital is certainly a big part of it. Perhaps our remote location between two great oceans and historical absence of the distraction of carpet bombing by foreign adversaries has a little to do with it as well.
Balloon on a hazy day.
For many of us, aerospace brings out excitement and optimism by its very nature. It embodies much of the best in people. The pillars of aerospace are many and rely strongly on ingenuity and engineering disciplines. By discipline I mean rigorous design-then-test cycles. A human-rated flying machine is a difficult and expensive build if the goal is for people and equipment to return intact. Unlike SpaceX who has launched much cargo, and among other things, a cheese wheel and a car, NASA has been launching people for a long time. Not to diminish the fine work of SpaceX or the other commercial efforts, it’s just that NASA takes a lot of heat for their deliberate pace.
Erie Airport, Colorado, from a hot air balloon at ca 2000′.
The last week has been a period of many modes of transportation. It’s been planes, trains, automobiles, ferry boats, and a hot air balloon. The nightmare of Seattle traffic is best forgotten. If you can avoid driving in Seattle during rush hours, do so.
If you can swing a hot air balloon ride, do it. Dig up some of that cash you have buried in the back yard and spend it. I found the ride to be absent any nerve wracking moments and to be quite a serene experience. There is no wind aloft and it is dead silent when the burners aren’t going. Do bring a hat, however. The burners are bloody hot.
Getting ready for a 4-balloon launch.
Like all pilots, balloonists enjoy low level flight.
The burners emit tremendous radiant heat. A wise passenger wears a hat for this reason.
It is not uncommon to read in chemistry papers or hear speakers from academic institutions making the assertion that certain problems exist that their method or reagent may solve. Perhaps a particular catalyst may give rise to a set of useful transformations or said catalyst may be fished out and reused in many other runs. Or, maybe the reagent in development affords spectacular yields or stereoselectivity. Given that an industry might have blockbuster products that share certain features or pharmacophores, an efficient method for synthesizing that feature is likely to be of genuine interest.
Chemical research coming from an academic institution in the USA is almost always executed by students and/or postdocs. In the case of graduate students, the work is done as part of their degree program and is designed to achieve certain goals or to explore a question. Regardless, it is not done to achieve a commercial purpose with product sales in mind. Student research is conducted with training and publication success as the goal. Graduate success and publication are the work products of academics.
If it transpires that a particular academic wants to do work that is also of commercial interest, that work should include certain commercial sensibilities associated with chemical production. Every business has its own list of development criteria in use. It will have a basis on in-house equipment and skills, company policy, safety, economic imperatives, working capital, required profit margins, environmental permits, available economies of scale, specialty or commodity products, etc.
Adopting a new reagent for an existing chemical product can be very problematic for a business. For production pharmaceuticals, it is likely to be impossible for management to actually contemplate the trouble involved in changing an approved process. For other industries a similar problem exists. Changing a reagent in an existing process will likely require the customer to approve the change and the drafting of an updated specification. And, for their trouble they are going to demand a reduced price. I’ve received and given that talking to on a few occasions myself.
If the change is very early in the reaction sequence of a lined-out process, there may be a chance to do a replacement or change a step. Maybe. Remember that customers usually do not like change in regard to the chemical product they are purchasing. They want and need consistency. Even improving purity can be bad if it results in the final product surprising the end-user in some way.
I would offer that if an academic worker wants to make a difference in commerce, they should concentrate on the final product in the application. It may be that an existing product could be made cheaper by your wonder reagent, or perhaps some me-too congener. Your reagent may be superior in a functional group transformation, but that is likely to draw yawns. How does your reagent add value to a process in concrete terms?
By adding value I mean to say, increasing profit margins. Costs in manufacturing are broadly divided into raw materials, labor, cost of sales and other overhead. They are not all easy to minimize. For instance, a mature product may be priced according to commodity scale pressures. That is, there are numerous suppliers and low margins in the market for producers. If the cost of goods sold is driven strongly by raw material costs, unless you can wangle a breakthrough in raw mat prices, staying price competitive may involve a race to the bottom of the lake. However, if labor is the major driver of cost, you may have a chance to increase margins by reduction in man-hours per unit. That reduction would come from any of a number of labor saving strategies.
Labor savings can come in many forms. More efficient use of existing equipment can lead to an increase of capacity and throughput over the year if the turnaround time between runs is shortened. Process intensification can also increase throughput and consequently reduced labor hours per kg of product. Higher reaction temperatures benefit kinetics as do increased space yields by running at higher concentrations. Just beware of the reaction enthalpy per kg of reaction mass (specific enthalpy). It is very possible to over-intensify and bring on problems with safe operation and side reactions.
For the academic aiming to be technologically relevant in a concrete way you have to think like the owner of big equipment. Idle equipment is not earning revenue. Busy equipment at least has a chance if it is done efficiently. Telescoping a process so that more steps can be run in the same vessel without solvent changes or excessive purification is always desirable. Moving material between vessels is time consuming and likely labor intensive.
More questions to consider. Does a reaction really require an overnight stir-out. And at reflux? Do you have a method of in-process checks that allow the next step to proceed? What is the minimum solvent grade you can get away with? Can you replace methylene chloride with anything else? What is the minimum purity raw material you can get away with? Unnecessarily high purity specs can be very expensive. Your customer will suffer from this as well.
Learn to get pricing from bulk suppliers. Use those unit prices for your cost calculations. For God’s sake, don’t use the Aldrich catalog for pricing. Remember, you’re trying to make a case for your technology. There should be a costing spreadsheet in your write up.
That’s enough for now. I gotta go home.
Public outreach in science is a important element for the maintenance of our present technology-affected (or afflicted) civilization. Science and engineering (Sci & Eng) activity is continually expanding the scope of the known. The global business sector, without relent, puts new technologies to work and retires others as obsolete. It is as though civilization is in a constant state of catch-up with the tools and materials being made newly available. And the quality of news is quite variable.
When it comes to the electronic and print mass media’s government reporting, the emphasis seems to me to focus on the current budgeting process and political conflict therein. These two subjects are in the “eternal now” in the flow of events. The word “news” is just the plural form of “new” so it is natural that news media focus on present budgeting and in-fighting. Media directors and executives know that reporting must be as concrete as possible and what could be more so than large dollar values and pithy news of political hijinks? Both raise our ire because cost and anger are emotional triggers for people. And emotional triggers bring lingering eyeballs to media.
The public not affiliated with Sci & Eng are quite often unaware of what their tax dollars are actually producing, perhaps many years down the timeline. The eventual outcome of government spending on Sci & Eng may be quite specialized and seem only remotely related to non-Sci & Eng life.
It has been my observation that media equates boring content with failure and compelling content with broadcasting success. The word “compelling” is used to describe something that attracts lingering eyeballs. Modern news broadcasting is the process of jumping from one compelling piece to another. I suppose we cannot blame them for this emphasis on superficiality because apparently it is what “we” want. The big We that draws advertisers and thus cash flow to broadcasters. It keeps the lights on and families fed. Basic stuff that can’t be dismissed with a utopian wave of the hand.
If there is going to be any fundamental change in the tenor and quality of content in media, it will have to come from citizen viewers. This leads me to the thrust of this essay: Those knowledgeable in Sci & Eng must bring the value proposition of current efforts in technological civilization to the citizenry, because broadcast media certainly can’t. By “broadcast media” I mean to include everything right down to what appears on your smart phone. Unfortunately, tech content typically emphasizes consumer goods like automobiles, electronic widgets, space, or miraculous medicine.
Those knowledgeable in Sci & Eng must bring the value proposition of current efforts in technological civilization to the citizenry, because broadcast media certainly can’t in any depth. They’re in showbiz.
Arguments in favor of rational stewardship of our little world won’t influence elected politicians. But informed and persuasive citizens can influence those who are less so and if they apply some leadership. Carefully. Those who may be less educated and less up to date on the sciency subjects do not take kindly to speech that talks down to them. The hand that reaches from above is still above and off-putting. Learn to communicate on even ground.
What works for me in reaching out to all levels of education is to use humor and a bit of showmanship. Reaching out to the public in a way that keeps their attention is hard to do and not everyone is prepared to do it. Lest you think I am describing putting on a show, not entirely. I am saying that by the deft use of knowledge, public speaking skill, and the strength of personality, it is possible to persuade even the scientifically reluctant to perk up and follow your efforts at making a point. But the point must be accessible. Deep detail and meandering monologue will lose your group. Keep your outreach succinct and limit the breadth to a few pearls of wisdom. Get feedback on your presentation. With any luck, they’ll go home and jump on Google for more.
If you need help with public speaking, join Toastmasters to improve. Try acting lessons. Join a theatre group. Learn to relax, pace yourself, and enjoy speaking. The better you get at the mechanics of public speaking, the more effective you’ll become.
[Note: The crummy WordPress text editor used to write this post is just abysmal. Why it was changed to the current revision is a mystery to me. -Th’ Gaussling]
I get to enjoy a commute through farm country every work day. It is my habit to pull over and watch the crop dusters when they’re out. I’m secretly jealous of them as they zoom with their wheels just above the crop in a powerful turboprop aircraft. In the fall of 2017 I caught this fellow spraying what I estimate is an antifungal onto a corn crop near the end of the growing season. The negative image seemed more interesting than the positive.
Duster in Negative Space
Helicopters show up now and again. These folks can do a 180 turn at the end of a pass faster and in a tighter space than can a fixed wing aircraft. Also they can pause to think about things whereas a fixed wing aircraft cannot.
Crop Dusting Chopper
Think what you will about spraying. If they’re out there, I’m going out to watch, but not so close as to smell the spray.
As I look back on the chemistry coursework I took as an undergrad, a few classes stand out as especially useful over my career. First some qualifications: I became an organic chemist because I found it to be a good “fit” for my brain. So, organically oriented courses were obviously useful. The chemistry department at my alma mater followed guidelines for the ACS Certified curriculum. Thus required coursework was prescribed and completed.
Sophomore Organic Chemistry: Fortuitously, I took 2/3 of my general chemistry in the preceding summer, so I was able to take organic chemistry in my freshman fall term. This was the great awakening. It was crystal clear that this was what I was meant to do. The benefits from a course on organic chemistry are many. Foremost on the list is that it is structurally and mechanistically oriented. The cognitive benefit is that a structural and mechanistic approach can render the subject a bit less abstract. At least to highly visual people like myself.
Molecules are tiny objects with even tinier places on them where certain things can happen. Reaction chemistry is revealed as a graphic sequence of specific events on specific objects. This allows the mind to put together patterns of functional groups and reaction motifs. In my view, a year of organic chemistry is the reward for slogging through a year of general chemistry. Gen Chem doesn’t make you a chemist. A tech perhaps. But gen chem is to the chemistry curriculum as The Hobbit is to The Lord of the Rings- a necessary prelude. That is what I used to tell students, anyway.
Qualitative Analysis: This was the third quarter of a 3-quarter sequence of freshman chemistry. It was heavily lab oriented with a focus on the separation and identification of inorganic cations and anions. It was substantially descriptive chemistry where clever schemes were used to isolate ionic species.
Analytical Chemistry: This is where you really begin to feel like a chemist. We all learn skills in this class that last. It is measurement science and error analysis. Every chemical scientist should have a solid foundation in wet chemistry.
Instrumental Analysis: This class was taken after Analytical Chemistry and built upon learnings from it. I’d offer that time spent on learning how your detectors work and their limitations is invaluable.
Organic Qualitative Analysis: I’ve come to learn that this class was an unusual experience. We learned to identify organic substances using fundamental means for 1982. Melting points, melting points of derivatives, NMR (60 MHz!!) & IR spectra, solubility, sodium fusion, Lucas Test, 2,4-DNP-hydrazones etc. We were required to get three data points per unknown to conclude that we had identified the substance. An indispensable resource was a compendium of derivative properties. A challenging but good experience.
Undergraduate Research: Two years of this experience was invaluable as a prelude to grad school. The asymmetric reduction of ketones (1982-84) work here lead to my doing a doctorate in asymmetric C-C bond forming chemistry and a postdoc in catalyzed C-H insertion chemistry. This activity is a must for those who want to pursue post-graduate work.
Advanced Organic Chemistry: What can I say?
Advanced Inorganic Lab: Good experience. Did some glass blowing. Worked on a vac line, tube furnace, and in a glove box. Good intro to airless work which would be important in grad school.
Inorganic Chemistry: I took this class in a time when symmetry and spectroscopy topics were an emphasis in the textbooks. Maybe it is still like that. But I wish we could’ve spent more time on descriptive and preparative inorganic chemistry.
Physical Chemistry: At the time it seemed as though the mathematical manipulations were more important than what the relationships actually meant. Statistical mechanics was played down in favor of more time on quantum mechanics. On entrance to grad school of the 5 qualifier exams taken, stat mech was the only one I failed.
Microbiology: My only college bio class. I swear that this class has saved me from food self-poisoning more than I realize. That is a lifelong benefit, but so was the insight into a fascinating world. The course included an intro to immunology which also has been useful.
Communications: I made great strides in learning how to do public speaking.
Russian Language: Took only 1 year- just enough to be dangerous. It was of nearly zero help when I eventually visited Russia years later on a business trip. I was interested in the history and politics of Soviet Russia in that slice of time during the cold war.
Computer Programming: Should have taken more classes. In the early eighties we had to use either punch cards or the DEC terminal. Oh, I hear that FORTRAN still sucks.
Air Force ROTC: The biggest benefit was that I learned I am not military material in any sense. But, the communication skills and the history of air power were useful. I couldn’t march to save my life. I was Gomer Pyle.
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