Periodic Table As Seen By Organic Chemists.

[NNadir]

I saw this on Linkedin, posted by a very senior guy at Lilly.

I will confess to having been an organic chemist, although at this point in my career, near the end, I'm more an analytical chemist.

We're really not entirely this shallow when it comes to the chemistry of the elements - samarium does some cool organic chemistry, as does, for that matter, cerium (Who cares?) - but I found it hilarious overall.

I recall a lecture by Barry Trost, a very famous organic chemist, where he had a periodic table, "The Periodic Table According to Trost," which featured palladium in much the same way as carbon is depicted here. (Catalysts I use to do real chemistry.)

Loved "fake elements made up by commies" since the second heaviest of them is named for Tennessee. I never thought of Tennessee as a communist country. (106 is named for the great American Chemist, Glenn Seaborg.)

[TexasTowelie]

1. That periodic table served me well

until I took Advanced Inorganic Chemistry.

[Old Crank]

2. Had interactions with Trost.

During my Stanford days trying to get his labs into compliance so we wouldn't be fined and in the newspaper as hazardous chemical risks. Not always pleasant interactions.

[NNadir]

3. Those big guys can be unpleasant and difficult. I knew two guys who worked with Corey.

One of them got his Ph.D. with him, the other was a post-doc.

The latter hated Corey; and claimed he couldn't hold a candle to his Ph.D. advisor, Jack Baldwin. I think it was personal. The guy who got his Ph.D with Corey, a friend of mine - a very laid back kind of guy with a generous spirit and a sense of humor - just described him as "difficultly eccentric."

I guess you're entitled to a certain amount of arrogance when you've "made it."

[Old Crank]

7. Just because

Just because you 'made it' doesn't give you license to grind people up. IMHO

[NNadir]

8. Oh, I definitely agree. Nevertheless, one may not appreciate what fame does to oneself.

My wife is observing this.

Recently, as an outgrowth of the Covid crisis, the professor for whom she works, an expert of evolution - including that of viruses - has found himself suddenly being interviewed by major media and invited to be "Keynote speaker" in various settings and racking up grants, is changing, and it seems not to be entirely under his control.

One can be decent, gracious, and famous at the same time of course. I once spent an hour in a room with Seaborg. I can't say I knew Seaborg - I didn't - but I observed his interactions with people. He struck me as a very decent and gracious man.

[NCjack]

4. Inorganic and physical chemists know that carbon is just the bus.

Hydrogen (disparaged as "Carbon's little buddy&quot does the heavy lifting.

[NNadir]

5. I never quite thought of it that way, but in many ways you're right. Mind if I steal that joke?

[NCjack]

9. Since I stole it from an inorganic chem professor in about 1966, I cannot object.

[reACTIONary]

6. Fake Elements got a LOL from me. nt.

[PCIntern]

10. Wonderful!!!

Took 4 semesters in college. Laughed my butt off here with this.