{"id":1390,"date":"2018-10-08T21:32:23","date_gmt":"2018-10-08T21:32:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=1390"},"modified":"2018-10-08T21:34:42","modified_gmt":"2018-10-08T21:34:42","slug":"from-the-vaults-a-tough-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=1390","title":{"rendered":"From the Vaults: A Tough Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now the title of this FTV is pretty generic. \u00a0It could apply to just about any endeavour, but with my background as a Geography\/Earth Science teacher, it won\u2019t surprise you that I am talking about science. \u00a0Perhaps it is just a force of habit, but one of the first books I read after retirement set in was <\/span>The Story of Chemistry: From the periodic table to nanotechnology <\/span><\/i>by Anne Rooney (Arcturus 2017). \u00a0Yes, I did teach a certain amount of basic chemistry in my Earth and Physical Science classes, but out of all the different branches on the tree of science, it was a subject that I wasn\u2019t as rabid about. \u00a0My dad suggested at one time that I should pursue a career as a pharmacist, but in my heart, I knew the amount of chemistry involved was a deal breaker. I am not a chemistry dolt, mind you, I am just not a chemistry geek. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In the end, I was able to satisfy my biology Jones by minoring in Conservation. \u00a0Getting a teaching degree in Geography\/Earth Science allowed me to touch on a host of subjects that I was interested in like Geology, Geomorphology, Dendrology, Meteorology, Cartography, and Physical Geography. \u00a0These concentrations helped me develop a teaching curriculum for my classes that contained elements of soil science, trees, landforms, weather, maps, and at least the basic chemistry that accompanied each subject. \u00a0The Geography part showed up in the plethora of mapping activities and projects my students engaged in. I only took one undergraduate Astronomy class (and a second one during my postgraduate years), and these classes eventually set me on a path teaching more and more Astronomy based material over the years. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0One of the first teaching objectives that the State of Michigan developed for science ( the first guidelines were being written in the early 1980s and have been undergoing constant tweaking ever since) called for some type of historical perspective in each subject area. \u00a0That was fine with me because \u2018how and when\u2019 a particular science field began was always built into my various subject areas. It was instructive to point out that it was always a long hard road from where a field of science began to where we are today. One of my points of emphasis kind of paralleled Kermit the Frog\u2019s old line, \u201cIt ain\u2019t easy being green.\u201d \u00a0My take was along the lines of, \u201cBeing a scientist in the early days wasn\u2019t always popular and it could get you killed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0One of the first examples that would come up in Astronomy was that of the well known Galileo Galilei and his less well remembered contemporary, Giordano Bruno. \u00a0Both drifted away from the idea that the Earth was the center of the Universe and that everything revolved around this planet. The newer Heliocentric model placed the Sun, not the Earth, at the center of our Solar System and definitely not at the center of the whole Universe. \u00a0The dogma of the day favored the Earth-centric Universe and it was entrenched in the scheme of things so deeply that it was considered heresy to believe anything else. Both Bruno and Galileo were put on trial for espousing such heretical teachings, but both were also given an opportunity to recant. \u00a0Bruno refused and was burned at the stake for holding fast to what we now take for granted. Galileo had friends in high places and they pleaded with him to disavow his earlier teachings, which he did, sort of. He wrote a treatise on the subject implying that he was not correct in teaching the Heliocentric model of the solar system, but he slyly left the door open that it was still the correct view. \u00a0His accusers either missed that he was tweaking their noses or ignored it for the sake of his benefactor.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Galileo did not invent the telescope as so many wrongly believe. \u00a0When he learned of this remarkable instrument first assembled by a Dutch spectacle maker, Galileo advanced the science of telescope making very rapidly. \u00a0He viewed the Moon\u2019s landscape with his new telescope and compared it to the Earth\u2019s. When he saw the four largest moons of Jupiter, he diligently recorded their motions. Unfortunately, these were also heretical acts because the dogma said (more or less), \u201cThat the Universe is composed of divinely created, perfect crystalline spheres upon which all of the things visible in the Universe are suspended.\u201d \u00a0Galileo defended his Lunar and Jovian observations by showing the same people who would later prosecute him (for his Heliocentric teachings) the telescopic view of a cathedral across the bay from his home. Galileo asked them, \u201cIf my instrument faithfully shows the familiar cathedral in greater detail, why would you not believe it is showing you a faithful (and Earth-like) of the Moon\u2019s mountains, valleys, and plains?\u201d \u00a0His semi-retraction (written with his fingers crossed) and his friends in high places kept Galileo from being sentenced to death, but not from being placed under house arrest for the remainder of his days. As I often told my students, \u201cI can kiss my wife goodbye in the morning and spend the whole day teaching science and feel confident that I will be home for dinner without being hauled away to some tribunal to face charges of heresy.\u201d \u00a0Being a scientist, back in the day, could indeed be a rough business. Sometimes those near Galileo found the inspiration to innovate in the threats to his (and their own) freedom.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0While Galileo and Gasparo Berti were exploring syphons, they discovered that they could not get one to work above a height of 34 feet. \u00a0When a glass tube is closed at one end and filled with water, it can be upended in a container of water and the water level will remain at 34 feet. \u00a0They had invented a water barometer to weigh the atmosphere but the effect needed more study. Evangelista Torricelli was one of Galileo\u2019s students who wanted to study the effect further. \u00a0No doubt because of his association with Galileo, Torricelli was under suspicion of sorcery and witchcraft so he needed a way to study atmospheric pressure without the conspicuous 34 foot glass tube. \u00a0His solution was to use mercury instead of water. The much denser mercury only required a 32 inch closed glass tube, thus leading Torricelli (during his secret experiments) to invent that staple of meteorology, the mercury barometer. \u00a0Note that \u201csorcery and witchcraft\u201d were also heretical acts that made a nice catch all for those wishing to prosecute scientists. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It wasn\u2019t until more recent times that the negative effects of contacting mercury were revealed. \u00a0We made mercury barometers in high school and it required one to hold their finger over the open end of the mercury filled glass tube while upending it in a beaker of mercury. \u00a0Nobody was immune to playing with the little globules that escaped on the lab table when a thermometer broke. The hazards from mercury absorption through the skin are widely known today and the main reason we purged all of the mercury from our science labs some years ago. \u00a0It made my heart sink to pack up our trusty mercury barometer to be sent for disposal, but who wanted to work with a material that could (as my old friend Dr. Wayne used to say), \u201cturn you into a neurological idiot.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0According to Rooney\u2019s book, Chemistry did not spring forth as an independent science. \u00a0The earliest roots of chemistry were not even recognized as a science. Many chemicals were utilized by our ancestors without much understanding of why certain compounds could be used as dyes and others to make glazes for pottery. \u00a0Most of these uses were stumbled upon accidentally and it was only later that learned men began to unravel what things were made of. The earliest belief was that all things were made up of four or five essential elements or \u2018roots\u2019. \u00a0Chinese, Arabic, Greek, and philosophers from other cultures didn\u2019t have the ability to see the atomic properties of matter, so they began by trying to classify the world around them as being combinations of air, water, earth, and fire. \u00a0When these proved insufficient to explain the way all things worked, other mysterious things like The Philosopher\u2019s Stone and phlogiston entered the picture. The Philosopher’s Stone was a hypothetical substance that could be created and used to transmutate base elements into other things, like gold and silver. \u00a0Phlogiston was an invisible property that was introduced to try and explain why some things burn better than others. Both muddied the water for hundreds of years as did the idea of Alchemy. Alchemy obsessed philosophers (we would call them scientists today) tried to manipulate base metals to create more valuable substances but the true founding of Chemistry would not take place until it branched off from the magical thinking that drove the Alchemists. \u00a0Alchemy held sway for centuries and some notable scientists like Sir Isaac Newton spent as much time searching for a way to spin straw into gold (to emphasis the magical thinking part of the whole concept) as they did more serious scientific problems. People wanted to believe in Alchemy so badly that it opened the doors for many charlatans who promised feats of magic for financial backers to the point that many governments made the practice illegal, even punishable by death in some cases.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As Chemistry came into its own as a science, it wasn\u2019t only the charlatans and fakers who courted death by science. \u00a0Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier is the acknowledged \u2018Father of Chemistry\u2019 and his career culminated with the publication of his book <\/span>Traite elementaire de chimie <\/span><\/i>in 1789. \u00a0Five years later, he was charged with \u201cadulterating tobacco and taking money from the national treasury to pay the enemies of France.\u201d \u00a0He was exonerated 18 months later when the government admitted that he had been falsely accused, but it mattered little to Lavoisier. He had already been guillotined (along with 27 others) for his \u2018crimes\u2019. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Joseph Priestley is mostly remembered for his pioneering work developing an apparatus to capture gases emitted during chemical reactions. \u00a0He is credited with discovering eight different gases, but Priestly still believed in the existence of that phantom fire element phlogiston. \u00a0He also had his own views about religion, leading him to support both the French and American revolutions. By Priestly\u2019s thinking, they would lead to \u201cthe overthrow of of all earthly regimes and hasten the coming of the Millennium of Christ as foretold in the Bible.\u201d \u00a0His was not a popular view and he fled to America to escape death at the hands of an angry mob. They burned down his house and laboratory and his life would have been forfeit had he not fled. He survived and the four days of rioting that preceded his escape are still referred to as \u2018the Priestley Riots.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Even into the 20th Century, great scientific discoveries sometimes carried unexpected risks. \u00a0Marie Curie became the only woman to win Nobel Prizes in two different areas of science. She is remembered for her work deciphering radiation from iridium and practical uses of X-Rays in battlefield hospitals during World War I. \u00a0She had been known to carry test tubes of radioactive substances in her pockets and remarked that the ones she kept in her desk drawer gave off a faint glow in the dark. Curie coined the name \u2018radioactivity and she used X-rays in WWI field hospitals with no form of protection. \u00a0The dangers of long term exposure to radiation and X-rays was unknown. Curie\u2019s health issues were never attributed to her work and she eventually died of aplastic anemia. Her working notes are considered too dangerous to handle without protective gear. Even her cook books are kept locked in a lead lined box. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Science is by no means the only field to expose its participants to danger. \u00a0When I used to introduce myself at science workshops I facilitated, the reactions from those who were horrified \u00a0that I chose a whole teaching career in Junior High science always amused me. Unlike many of the great pioneers of science, I never felt that my life was at risk sharing knowledge with a room full of seventh or eighth graders. \u00a0Sure, it isn\u2019t for everyone, but by far the toughest part of the science game was experienced by those who paved the way to our modern world.<\/span><\/p>\n

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