What You May Have Missed

My modest blog just passed the quarter million views mark which is an inflated way of saying 250,063 pageviews. Thank you dear readers!

Here are the "top ten" posts according to my Blogger statistics, as well as a short recap:

1  The Parable Of The Doorkeeper*  19,420 views

This post is just my favorite Kafka parable and compares the German and English texts. It must be others' favorite too as it was Instalaunched (thank you, Professor Reynolds!)

2   Hail Britannic!  16,311 views

This one concerned the RMS Titanic's younger sister ship, HMHS Britannic and her sad story. Also, I drew a link between Jacques Cousteau's TV coverage of the shipwreck and the plot of James Cameron's Titanic. But I think many people were just looking for the interesting photo. 

3  Titanic Centennial: at the real Café Parisien  9,698 views

I think it odd that this post is number 3. It's just a famous old photograph of a very hip cafe on board the Titanic. Maybe that's all people were looking for. I did a series of posts on Titanic.

4  Forgotten Americans: Jack Thayer, Titanic Survivor  3,918 views

This post tells the story of young Jack Thayer and his heroic account of surviving the sinking. He was the first to publicly assert that Titanic broke in two. His views were contradicted in the official investigations and reports at the time, but he was vindicated when the wreck was actually found. Sadly, he committed suicide. 

5  The SS Great Eastern  3,452 views

Another famous ship and shipwreck story here. The photo is a haunting one and is worth a look. 

6  It's No Lye That Soap Is Made From Pot Ash  2,087 views

This post concerns the element potassium and was one of a series of posts I did covering the chemical elements. I got as far as rhodium with that series and plan to pick it up again with palladium.

7  Newlands' Law of Octaves 1,676 views

This post retells the interesting saga of John Newlands, the man who first drew attention to the chemical periodicity of the elements, a very favorite topic of mine. 

8  Last Letters From Stalingrad: #23  1,572 views

This post is one of a series of letters I transcribed from Last Letters From Stalingrad, an out-of-print, but very haunting book. See the links at the bottom of that post for more on that series. 

9  Last Letters From Stalingrad: #9  1,271 views


10  The Essence of Distillation 972 views

This is actually my personal favorite of the 10. If I could write more of these, I'd do it all day long. 

Catfish Blues (1941)

Can't You See?

I missed the 20th anniversary of Toy Caldwell's death (1947-1993). He was an interesting guy: he volunteered for Vietnam (USMC), was wounded and discharged; he waited for his brother's discharge before forming the band. His loving wife, Ab, still maintains a website: link

The Day The Muse Just Died*

Bobby Fuller idolized fellow Texan Buddy Holly and The Crickets and it really shows in his covers of "Love's Made A Fool Of You" and "I Fought The Law And The Law Won."

Fuller died at age 23 under mysterious circumstances. Here is a YouTube video dramatizing some of the unresolved details. link

Lesser known was Fuller's involvement in surf music in the early 1960's. Here are three songs he wrote and recorded, all of which appear to contain the same guitar riff which culminated in its purest form in "Our Favorite Martian" recorded and released in 1964.

First there is "The Chase" which I have not been able to date, but I put it first because I suspect it came first:

"Stringer" was recorded in 1963; listen at the 57 second mark for the same basic riff:

Finally, the whole riff was purified and distilled into my favorite, er, "Our Favorite Martian" from 1964:

Bobby Fuller's death was so ignominious, and so unseemly (no matter the motives) that the public barely remembers him; and if they do look they see him as a link backwards to Buddy Holly; I think he deserved a bit more respect than that.
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Conversations with Henry

Henry: Why'd you have to go and mention Henry Eyring?  He's a "hot button" issue in the politics of science.

Me:  Why's that?

Henry: Well, he was a Mormon you know.  He gave up his seat at Princeton to move back to Utah to run things.

Me: Does that even matter?

Henry:  Of course not. But Eyring was one of those—along with Gilbert Lewis—who should have won the Nobel Prize...but didn't.

Me:  You're not saying that his religion had something to do with why he didn't win?

Henry:  I'm not not saying that. But you do know that he's related to Mitt Romney? link

Titanic Centennial: Stranger Than Fiction?

From the preface to Walter Lord's A Night To Remember:

In 1898, a struggling author named Morgan Robertson concocted a novel about a fabulous Atlantic liner, far larger than any that had ever been built. Robertson loaded his ship with the rich and complacent and then wrecked it one cold April night on an iceberg. This somehow showed the futility of everything, and in fact, the book was called Futility when it appeared that year, published by the firm of M F. Mansfield. 

Fourteen years later, a British shipping company named the White Star Line built a steamer remarkably like the one in Robertson's novel. The new liner was 66,000 tons displacement; Robertson's was 70,000 tons. The real ship was 882.5 feet long; the fictional one was 800 feet.  Both vessels were were triple screw and could make 24-5 knots. Both could carry about 3,000 people, and both had enough lifeboats for only a fraction of this number. But, then, this didn't seem to matter because both were labelled 'unsinkable.'
...
Robertson called his ship the Titan; the White Star Line called its ship the Titanic. This is the story of her last night. 

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Robertson's uncanny story is linked here. Futility was republished in 1912 as the Wreck of the Titan. Interestingly, Robertson also "invented" the periscope, and predicted a Japanese sneak attack on the US. He died of apparent suicide in 1915.

Titanic Centennial: "He was One of God's Greatest Noblemen"

Major Archibald Butt (1865-1912)

Two different eyewitnesses attested to Major Archibald Butt's bravery that night. From The Sinking of the Titanic and other Sea Disasters:

The following story of his bravery was told by Mrs. Henry B. Harris, wife of a theatrical manager:

'The world should rise in praise of Major Butt. That man's conduct will remain in my memory forever. The American army is honored by him and the way he taught some of the other men how to behave when women and children were suffering that awful mental fear of death. Major Butt was near me and I noticed everything that he did.

When the order to man the boats came, the captain whispered something to Major Butt. The two of them had become friends. The major immediately became as one in supreme command. You would have thought he was at a White House reception. A dozen or more women became hysterical all at once, as something connected with a life-boat went wrong. Major Butt stepped over to them and said: 'Really, you must not act like that; we are all going to see you through this thing.' He helped the sailors rearrange the rope or chain that had gone wrong and lifted some of the women in with a touch of gallantry. Not only was there a complete lack of any fear in his manner, but there was the action of an aristocrat.

When the time came he was a man to be feared. In one of the earlier boats fifty women, it seemed, were about to lowered, when a man, suddenly panic-stricken, ran to the stern of it. Major Butt shot one arm out, caught him by the back of the neck and jerked him backward like a pillow. His head cracked against a rail and he was stunned.

'Sorry,' said Major Butt, 'women will be attended to first or I'll break every damned bone in your body.'

The boats were lowered one by one, and as I stood by, my husband said to me, 'Thank God, for Archie Butt.' Perhaps Major Butt heard it, for he turned his face towards us for a second and smiled. Just at that moment, a young man was arguing to get into a life-boat, and Major Butt had a hold of the lad by the arm, like a big brother, and was telling him to keep his head and be a man.

Major Butt helped those poor frightened steerage people so wonderfully, so tenderly and yet with such cool and manly firmness that he prevented the loss of many lives from panic. He was a soldier to the last. He was one of God's greatest noblemen, and I think I can say he was an example of bravery even to men on the ship.

Miss Marie Young, who was a music instructor to President Roosevelt's children and had known Major Butt during the occupancy of the White House, told this story of his heroism:

Archie himself put me into a boat, wrapped blankets about me and tucked me in as carefully as if we were starting on a motor ride. He, himself, entered the boat with me, performing the little courtesies as calmly and with as smiling a face as if death were far away, instead of being but a few moments removed from him.

When he had carefully wrapped me up he stepped upon the gunwale of the boat, and lifting his hat, smiled down at me. 'Good-bye, Miss Young,' he said. 'Good luck to you, and don't forget to remember me to the folks back home.' Then he stepped back and waved his hand to me as the boat was lowered. I think I was the last woman he had a chance to help, for the boat went down shortly after we cleared the suction zone.

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I cannot fathom why Butt's gallantry has been whitewashed from Titanic history. Was it just his unfortunate name?

Sometime between 1912 and the publication of Walter Lord's A Night To Remember in 1955, Major Butt's actions were inexplicably downgraded to casual bystander.  He doesn't even appear in Cameron's Titanic. Lord, doyen of Titanic historians, had interviewed dozens of living Titanic survivors for his book, but I wonder if Marie Young or Mrs Harris were among them. 

I can suggest three other possible reasons:

• Butt had been over-dramatized in earlier accounts and Walter Lord wanted to attenuate that. Lord also downplayed the words and heroism of Benjamin Guggenheim, who will be in a future post.
• Butt was a southerner and the nephew of a Confederate general (Lord was an early civil rights activist).
• Butt was a bachelor and was travelling with the artist  Francis David Millet, who had scandalously lived abroad with another man. Lord himself was a lifelong bachelor and probably should have been more sympathetic.

Despite his diminished stature among Titanic historians, Butt's memory lives.  According to the Wiki:

During his time serving with two presidents, Butt wrote almost daily letters to his sister-in-law Clara, of Augusta, Georgia. These letters are prized by modern historians as a key source of information on the more private events of these two presidencies, as well as invaluable insights into the respective characters of Roosevelt and Taft.

Michigan is still well endowed with bromides

Herbert Henry Dow (1866-1930)

I just ordered an old biography about Herbert H. Dow. I don't own a kindle, so I tend to collect books. I have lots of older books too.

Herbert Dow based his eponymous company in Midland, Michigan because he found lots of bromide ion in the water there. I learned that when I visited there--years ago--to help a company evaluate some technology they were buying from Dow.

Dow originally invented a process for producing bromine from bromide and the story of him beating the Germans at their own game fascinates me. I want to read more.

Meet the Priest who invented Flubber

Remember the storyline from Walt Disney's The Absent Minded Professor(1961)?  Fred MacMurray played a small Midwestern college chemistry professor who invented a miraculous substance which he named Flubber. He saved the football team and got the girl in the end. I think I found the real-life embodiment-well, forget the getting the girl part and focus on the chemistry and small midwestern university parts.

Reverend Julius Nieuwland (1878-1936)

I ran across the name Julius Nieuwland recently. Nieuwland was a priest and professor at Notre Dame University. As part of his Ph.D research, Nieuwland discovered Lewisite which was produced in tonnage quantitites by the U.S. during World War I as a poison gas.  Nieuwland had nothing to do with this application and distanced himself from the molecule (it's named for an enthusiastic supporter of gas warfare, named Lewis). Later, as a professor of organic chemistry at Notre Dame, Nieuwland successfully polymerized acetylene into divinylacetylene, laying the groundwork for the discovery of neoprene by Du Pont.

One of Nieuwland's more famous students was Knute Rockne, which even explains the football part of the otherwise bizarre Flubber story.

Why Don't People Have More Respect For The Kingston Trio?

No, sole-surviving original member Bob Shane (middle right) didn't die, but the passing of Nick Reynolds (bottom left) in October 2008 went barely noticed. I checked some of my favorite blogs at the time and nobody even mentioned it.  Then again, I once mentioned that the hills behind my house were on fire and nobody noticed that either. Such things would never happen on Twitter.

The Kingston Trio were a staple of my early youth- circa 1963-64. My folks had 3 or 4 of their vinyl LPs. They seemed like good clean fun--fit for all ages--but did you ever check the lyrics for A Worried Man where Dave Guard sings:

Well Bobby's in the living room holding hands with Sue, Nicky's at that big front door 'bout to come on through, well I'm here in the closet, oh Lord what shall I do? 

what's that about?

So why didn't people have more respect for The Kingston Trio?

(1) They were overplayed?
(2) They "stole" songs and generally didn't write their own material?
(3) They weren't left wing enough?
(4) Bob Dylan came along and made them irrelevant?
(5) Never heard of the Kingston Trio.

Forgotten Americans: Jack Thayer, Titanic Survivor

My grandmother had that book and I loved it so much as a kid that she gave it to me. Logan Marshall's The Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters was rushed into print in 1912 shortly after the disaster. Inside are several accounts of survivors, some of whom later became immortalized in the movie Titanic (which I won't link to out of spite for James Cameron).

Jack Thayer was 17 and travelling with his parents. His wiki bio is here.  He was first to insist that the Titanic split in two when she went down. Here are the drawings that Thayer made while on board the rescue ship Carpathia and his description of the Titanic's final moments as published in 1912:

...I jumped out, feet first.  I was clear of the ship; went down, and as I came up I was pushed away from the ship by some force. I came up facing the ship, and one of the funnels seemed to be lifted off and fell towards me about 15 yards away, with a mass of sparks and steam coming out of it. I saw the ship in a sort of a red glare, and it seemed to me that she broke in two just in front of the third funnel.

This time I was sucked down, and as I came up I was pushed out again and twisted around by a large wave, coming up in the midst of a great deal of small wreckage. As I pushed my hand from my head it touched the cork fender of an overturned life-boat. I looked up and saw some men on the top and asked them to give me a hand. One of them, who was a stoker, helped me up. In a short time the bottom was covered with about twenty-five or thirty men. When I got on this I was facing the ship.

The stern then seemed to rise in the air and stopped at about an angle of 60 degrees.  It seemed to hold there for a time and then with a hissing sound it shot right down out of sight with people jumping from the stern.  The stern either pivoted around towards our boat, or we were sucked toward it, and as we only had one oar we could not keep away.  There did not seem to be much suction and most of us managed to stay on the bottom of our boat.

Thayer's theory was dismissed for 70 years until Robert Ballard used his account to help locate the wreck--which he found in two pieces--just as Thayer had said.

For those who have kids: some little models used to be commercially available that reproduce the exact way that the ship sank: link. I own one.  Fun for the kids and grown-up kids alike.

Gilbert Newton Lewis (1875-1946)

Poor under appreciated G. N. Lewis, perhaps the most famous chemist never to win a Nobel Prize, despite having been nominated 35 times. A few of his accomplishments included:

• From 1912 to 1941, at a time went Germany still dominated the field, he put the University of California chemistry department on the international map: Lewis did for Berkeley chemistry what Oppenheimer and Lawrence did for physics there.
• In 1923, he formulated the electron-pair theory of acid-base reactions. In the so-called Lewis theory of acids and bases, a "Lewis acid" is an electron-pair acceptor and a "Lewis base" is an electron-pair donor. It's hard to overemphasize how conceptually useful this concept remains in chemistry.
• Also in 1923, Lewis published a monograph on his theories of the chemical bond and formulated what later became known as the covalent bond. These ideas reached back to 1916. 
• Lewis coined the term "photon" and was involved in many of the theoretical and experimental problems of his day including: electrolytes, thermodynamics, and valence bond theory. 

So what went wrong? According to the Wiki:

In 1946, a graduate student found Lewis's lifeless body under a laboratory workbench at Berkeley. Lewis had been working on an experiment with liquid hydrogen cyanide, and deadly fumes from a broken line had leaked into the laboratory. The coroner ruled that the cause of death was coronary artery disease, but some believe that it may have been a suicide. Berkeley Emeritus Professor William Jolly, who reported the various views on Lewis's death in his 1987 history of UC Berkeley’s College of Chemistry, "From Retorts to Lasers", wrote that a higher-up in the department believed that Lewis had committed suicide.

Is this true? Why? I intend to read Jolly's book. Meanwhile, Patrick Coffey, a businessman and former chemist who moonlights as a historian, thinks otherwise:

He was brilliant intellectually, he could cut right through to the simplest solution to any problem. The downside of Lewis was he was very prickly and made a lot of enemies.

He'd been home-schooled as a child. He never seemed comfortable outside his closed environment. He probably needed to get in more fights on the playground.

He built his own support system, but when he got out of that system, if anybody gave him any slight at all he'd hold a lifelong grudge. Lewis's exacting nature sometimes got the best of him.

By the time of his death, he'd completely estranged himself from at least four Nobel laureates, and one of them was Irving Langmuir.

Yeesh, Coffey makes the Chemistry Nobel sound like the Oscars. He goes on to say:

There's nothing criminal here, but it's interesting, that probably the two greatest physical chemists [Lewis and Langmuir] of the 20th century had lunch together the day one of them died. 

Read the linked article and make up your own mind. I'm still gathering facts.