I just finished watching BBC’s Planet Earth followed by Planet Earth II. Wow! The videography is amazing and I kept muttering to my spouse, “no CGI”. In 2022, it’s refreshing to see such amazing visuals that do not resort to CGI. The behavior of plants, animals, fungi, and other organisms is both diverse and strange. There are themes that standout, foremost being ecology and evolution. Organisms have evolved over time to settle into an ecological niche, but as the environment changes, life becomes threatened. I also didn’t realize how many creatures make annual mass migrations in search of food and shelter.
If I were a kid watching Planet Earth, I’d absolutely want to be a biologist. Living organisms are diverse, interesting, and there are endless things to explore. But since I took up my livelihood as a chemist over two decades ago, I guess I missed that opportunity. I’m making up for it by studying the chemical origins of life – and I know I’m biased by thinking that chemical systems are both beautiful and dynamic in their own way. Planet Earth also made me think about why we chemists don’t have something equivalent to draw in an audience. Physics has the astronomy and the wonders of the universe, and a strong counterpart in science-fiction. They also have some nice visuals. What do we have in chemistry? Nada, except for some demonstrations that do wow younger kids but college students are much less impressed by.
Popular books on physics and biology are aplenty. I’ve read many of them and blogged about some of them. Chemistry? Not so much. I’ve read most of what’s available. My favorite thus far is Periodic Tales, and I wrote multiple blog posts about it. What is it about chemistry that causes people to shun it? The esoteric-ness? The fact that we’re constantly thinking about invisible things? Or that Johnstone’s Triangle makes it difficult to grasp conceptually? Or maybe we’re doing a poor job teaching it. If I earned a dollar every time someone told me they were “bad at chemistry”, I’d be rich.
I’d think that materials chemistry would be a selling point. We can make all these cool, interesting, and useful new materials using chemistry. And yet we haven’t come close to capturing the public imagination. What are we known for? Poisons and Pollutants. And what about the nanosized world of chemistry? They feature nanobots used for evil in sci-fi or superhero-supervillain movies. Biochemistry is mostly thought of as the wonders of biology rather than chemistry. As to chemistry being a basis for magic, it tends (in fiction-fantasy) to be based on the four (or five) elements theory of Aristotle and others. Chemistry just doesn’t seem to capture the public imagination.
What am I going to do about this? I don’t know. Every semester I hope to instill in my students the wonder of seeing the world with chemistry-tinted glasses. I do succeed with a student or two, every now and then. But for the most part, students still find it a chore, if not mildly interesting – though nowhere close to what really interests them. Today I told my students about exploding cows in one class, and the weirdness of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle in another class. Strange things do catch their attention, but I’m not sure they hold that attention sufficiently. Perhaps it’s all I can do. Perhaps I can do more. In the meantime I hope there’s a chemist out there helping to make the equivalent of Planet Earth.
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