Replying to LO28455 --
Dear Organlearners,
Alan Cotterell <acotrel@cnl.com.au> writes
(and to which our host replies):-
>I am also an industrial chemist, do you think I might be a radical ?
>
>[Host's Note: Perhaps a free radical? ..Rick]
Greetings dear Alan,
Our host set us an example -- wisdom is to seek for the humorous in the
serious.
At school in standard nine we had a teacher in Afrikaans langauge who
taught us that humour has many faces. The face which he loved most is what
can be called "gallows humor".
I was thinking seriously about your one liner, presented as a question,
and how to answer it. Rick knows enough of chemistry to have seen the
humour in it. This helped me immensely to prepare an answer to you.
Most universities have a faculty of science. Most faculties of science
have a department of chemistry. I think that many a dean of a science
faculty must have "hair on the teeth" to manage the chemistry department.
The reason is that exploring chemistry helps the mind to think radically.
In my first two years at university I also studied industrial chemistry.
But in my third year I changed over into pure science. The reason was that
the professor in industrial chemistry was not thinking radically enough
for me ;-)
The word "radical" has its roots in the Latin word "radix"=root. Doing
chemistry often involves risks so that chemists have to go into the roots
of what they are doing to minimise risks. This makes chemists unusually
sensitive to risks and roots. Should any fellow learner study the articles
from your labour management course at the Dookie Agricultural College (see
< http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/acotrel/labourman/index.html >) they will
find out just how sensitive you are to risk. Perhaps they will also form
an opinion to how much you are radical ;-)
The chemistry of free radicals is exciting, but invariably dangerous in
some or other manner. Alan, that is why I will not say that you are a
radical because someone may conclude that you are dangerous ;-)
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
"Learning-org" and the format of our message identifiers (LO1234, etc.) are trademarks of Richard Karash.