This note from a long-time friend of Joe's ... a geologist and fellow fly-fisherman in order to frame the references........
Hi Joe - Glad to hear your new life is providing so much excitement.
What a great post …. Hilarious, actually ….. I’m guessing from the reading that your current class is the closest thing you’ve had to ‘real’ chemistry since High School – and from your descriptions of the lectures – you really are getting some ‘upper level’ concepts. Just reading your words brought back many, many painful memories of classes just like that … .and then many even more complex – involving way, way, way upper level math concepts … that followed. I am SO GLAD that I have forgotten most of that stuff. I guess there was a reason that we had to take it all – rocks after all are made up of minerals and minerals are a product of chemistry at its finest – but I am so pleased that the chosen field of work has led me AWAY from those details. Hilarious, none the less …. Good for you!
Several flashes of memory occurred during the reading ……
My long-time fly rod builder had a magnet on his refrigerator that said ….. “One more day passed and I still have not used the Algebra I had to learn in High School” ….. such is my feeling about the details of the chemistry you described – not once have I had to worry about co-valence, phenol chains or balanced formulas. Rest assured that you can probably survive wine-making without knowing and applying all the details. Maybe they will find some use during cocktail hour chit-chats. I guess I take some minor comfort in knowing those things are ‘out there’ … and perhaps that ‘someone else’ is worrying about them.
Mel Kreiger always used to say when he started a session of fly casting instruction …..”The first thing I do is figure out who I am teaching. You discover that there are poets and there are engineers, and how you explain things depends on who’s listening.” It seems to me that wine-making might have some of that same element to it. In truth, of course, I guess ‘everything’ involves the two concepts –either in doing it with an ‘artists’ or a ‘craftsman’s’ touch vs. doing it with a recipe…..only. Sadly, these days, I guess most everything can be analyzed down to its most intimate components and a detailed recipe (set of plans / drawings) can be produced so that ‘anything’ can be created – perfectly. It will be a sad day when that ‘formula for everything’ (probably with government-imposed mandates that no other approach is allowed) dominates. Understanding how things work (the details of the chemistry) is ‘helpful’, I guess (maybe even important) … but it surely makes things less ‘fun’. My initial degree is in engineering – but my heart is in the ‘art’ of the science. I’m so pleased for that. (I did not wear a pocket protector).
Some time back my brother sent a piece about modern wine-making that essentially said – every bottle of wine can now be analyzed in such detail that it can be reproduced completely in the laboratory to the point that it is ‘indistinguishable’ from the ‘real’ thing. Of course, they’ve said that about the Stradivarius and the finest Payne rods and I’m not sure they’ve really delivered. At any rate – apparently these days some winemakers can get to the ‘almost there’ point and then discover that one thing or another is a bit ‘short’ in that particular batch, and then can ‘fix’ the problem with a little creative chemistry. Hope you don’t learn or resort to that! I want to believe that ‘The touch of an artist’s hand’ adds something to everything.
One last - One of the most often failed classes at Colorado Mines was ‘Organic-Phy-Chem’ – the physics and chemistry combo that involved super calculus and all other manners of advanced-beyond-comprehension principles. Everyone struggled to survive that – most requiring several attempts (I think I took it three times). NO ONE (as far as I know) ever used it in their career (well maybe, a few of the Chem-Es but they were weird anyway). Years later my son was dating a delightful young lady who was studying advanced bio-medicine. One Christmas vacation she was at the house and said ….”Mr Briscoe, did you take OP-Chem?” When I answered “Yes” she said …. “Oh Great, you can help me with my final coming up!” My reply …. “Heather, no one could ever help anyone with OPC” ….. I couldn’t even remember studying the things she described. Weeks later I saw her and asked …. “Heather, how did you do on that OPC final?” She answered …. “Oh, I got a 100 on it!” …. My shocked reply …..“Heather – no one in the history of the world has ever gotten 100 on an OPC final!” ……. She answered … “You know, that’s exactly what my professor said!” Fortunately, that relationship did not last … I think she works in the CDC now.
Thank you for including the ethanol molecule t-shirt! Should be mandatory for any wine nerd ;)
More than anything loved the logo and sticker on the wine bottle. Good luck from https://sulavineyards.com/
This note from a long-time friend of Joe's ... a geologist and fellow fly-fisherman in order to frame the references........
Hi Joe - Glad to hear your new life is providing so much excitement.
What a great post …. Hilarious, actually ….. I’m guessing from the reading that your current class is the closest thing you’ve had to ‘real’ chemistry since High School – and from your descriptions of the lectures – you really are getting some ‘upper level’ concepts. Just reading your words brought back many, many painful memories of classes just like that … .and then many even more complex – involving way, way, way upper level math concepts … that followed. I am SO GLAD that I have forgotten most of that stuff. I guess there was a reason that we had to take it all – rocks after all are made up of minerals and minerals are a product of chemistry at its finest – but I am so pleased that the chosen field of work has led me AWAY from those details. Hilarious, none the less …. Good for you!
Several flashes of memory occurred during the reading ……
My long-time fly rod builder had a magnet on his refrigerator that said ….. “One more day passed and I still have not used the Algebra I had to learn in High School” ….. such is my feeling about the details of the chemistry you described – not once have I had to worry about co-valence, phenol chains or balanced formulas. Rest assured that you can probably survive wine-making without knowing and applying all the details. Maybe they will find some use during cocktail hour chit-chats. I guess I take some minor comfort in knowing those things are ‘out there’ … and perhaps that ‘someone else’ is worrying about them.
Mel Kreiger always used to say when he started a session of fly casting instruction …..”The first thing I do is figure out who I am teaching. You discover that there are poets and there are engineers, and how you explain things depends on who’s listening.” It seems to me that wine-making might have some of that same element to it. In truth, of course, I guess ‘everything’ involves the two concepts –either in doing it with an ‘artists’ or a ‘craftsman’s’ touch vs. doing it with a recipe…..only. Sadly, these days, I guess most everything can be analyzed down to its most intimate components and a detailed recipe (set of plans / drawings) can be produced so that ‘anything’ can be created – perfectly. It will be a sad day when that ‘formula for everything’ (probably with government-imposed mandates that no other approach is allowed) dominates. Understanding how things work (the details of the chemistry) is ‘helpful’, I guess (maybe even important) … but it surely makes things less ‘fun’. My initial degree is in engineering – but my heart is in the ‘art’ of the science. I’m so pleased for that. (I did not wear a pocket protector).
Some time back my brother sent a piece about modern wine-making that essentially said – every bottle of wine can now be analyzed in such detail that it can be reproduced completely in the laboratory to the point that it is ‘indistinguishable’ from the ‘real’ thing. Of course, they’ve said that about the Stradivarius and the finest Payne rods and I’m not sure they’ve really delivered. At any rate – apparently these days some winemakers can get to the ‘almost there’ point and then discover that one thing or another is a bit ‘short’ in that particular batch, and then can ‘fix’ the problem with a little creative chemistry. Hope you don’t learn or resort to that! I want to believe that ‘The touch of an artist’s hand’ adds something to everything.
One last - One of the most often failed classes at Colorado Mines was ‘Organic-Phy-Chem’ – the physics and chemistry combo that involved super calculus and all other manners of advanced-beyond-comprehension principles. Everyone struggled to survive that – most requiring several attempts (I think I took it three times). NO ONE (as far as I know) ever used it in their career (well maybe, a few of the Chem-Es but they were weird anyway). Years later my son was dating a delightful young lady who was studying advanced bio-medicine. One Christmas vacation she was at the house and said ….”Mr Briscoe, did you take OP-Chem?” When I answered “Yes” she said …. “Oh Great, you can help me with my final coming up!” My reply …. “Heather, no one could ever help anyone with OPC” ….. I couldn’t even remember studying the things she described. Weeks later I saw her and asked …. “Heather, how did you do on that OPC final?” She answered …. “Oh, I got a 100 on it!” …. My shocked reply …..“Heather – no one in the history of the world has ever gotten 100 on an OPC final!” ……. She answered … “You know, that’s exactly what my professor said!” Fortunately, that relationship did not last … I think she works in the CDC now.
Happy Fermenting!