Conversations with Henry: The Point Is...

Henry: The point you keep trying to make regarding elements is unclear. You need to simplify.

Me: How so?

Henry: For starters, make it purely mathematical. Take away all the character surrounding each element -- the names, the histories, their special properties -- take all that out. Take out everything but its essential core and its surroundings -- like this:

1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14 15....

Me: Isn't that a bit reductionist? Matter isn't like a number line sequence.

Henry: You can always add the essential character back in. Do you think a person is defined by their DNA sequence? Describing the elements as a number line emphasizes their sameness and brings out their essential differences. Each element is like a point...a densely charged kernel suffused with opposite charge.

Me: I get it.

Conversations with Henry: I knew him you know

Henry: I saw your post about isotopes. I knew the guy who discovered kinetic isotope effects.

Me: You did?

Henry: Yes. Jacob Bigeleisen. We roomed together during graduate school at Berkeley. He wasn't famous then of course. That came later. He went to Columbia afterwards. That was early in the war, when the Manhattan Project was still in Manhattan.

Me: Wow! Tell me more about it!

[Henry shuffles the deck and deals us both five new cards]

Conversations with Henry: Show Your Cards

[continued from here]

I discard two cards and pick up two more.

Me: What a shitty hand.

Henry: You gotta play what you're dealt.  Maybe we should play for money next time?

(I lay down my cards):

Me: I got iron, cobalt, and nickel!

Henry: Hmm! Not bad. A straight too. Too bad about the others. Maybe we should play hydrogen is wild next time.

(Henry lays down his cards):

Me: Shit Henry, that's a fullhouse: three noble metals and two noble gases!

Conversations with Henry

Henry: Back in my day there were still holes and notches in the Periodic Table.
Henry sketched:

Me: But aren't the notches just from how we think about things?

Henry: Meaning?

Me: Meaning that the "notch" in the s- and p-blocks are because hydrogen and helium don't really belong to either block?

Henry: That's bullshit.  They certainly do belong with those other elements.

Me:  OK. So the notches come from discontinuities. Hydrogen and helium are completely s in character--and so are lithium and beryllium.

Henry: So why is helium parked over the p-block?

Me: Exactly! It really shouldn't be there.

Henry: Bullshit.  Helium is a noble gas. Of course it belongs there. Duh.
Henry looks at his cards and frowns.

Henry: I'll take two.
He discards two cards and I give him two more.

Conversations with Henry

Absence is the highest form of presence.

-- James Joyce A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man

[Henry and I are sitting at a table in his backyard, about to play a game of cards. Henry picks up a .22 rifle leaning against the table and aims it out at the garden and fires. A puff of soil dust appears near a gopher hole.]

Henry: Damn! Missed! He's been eating my turnips.
Henry picks up his cards and looks at them. I do likewise.

Me: What did you think of the election?

Henry: We can basically do two things: build schools or build prisons.

Me: OK, but do the teachers and guards have to break the bank?

[Long pause]

Me: Henry??  Where'd you go?