Harrison and Wiggins

Hello Humans! So, I was going to just include this part in my last blog about the Periodic Table, when I was listing all of my favorite things. Among the Periodic Table lies my Lab Safety Goggles and Lab Coat. I decided that I should name them, because I name everything important to me. And being a scientist, my Safety Goggles and Lab Coat are some of the most important things to me, and I hold them very near and dear to my heart.

I decided to name my Safety Goggles Harrison, after Anna J. Harrison. She was the first female president of the ACS, or the American Chemist Society, which is the biggest group of chemists in the world. She taught at a University and did a lot of research, especially during World War 2 when she developed a toxic smoke for the US Army. Her later work is what really inspires me. She researched how organic molecules interact with, probably my favorite sub-atomic particle of all time: Photons, or light for those of you non-scientists. She learned how compounds decomposed with exposure to light, and also how they would bend in light. I even got to use one of her techniques that she developed in my o-chem lab a couple of weeks ago, which involves the bend of light through your substance to tell how pure it is. Sadly, as a female scientist, she didn't get the recognition she deserved, and there isn't much about her. But I hope to be like Harrison one day, studying my favorite sub-atomic particles, but hopefully the world has changed enough since the 1960s so that I will be able to get my recognition for changing the world and science community.

My Lab Coat is named after someone who changed the course of my college career. I've mentioned him many times before, because he's had probably the biggest impact on my life, besides my 7th grade science teacher and chemistry professor. It's Professor Wiggins, my Physics professor. He not only gave me the confidence I needed during my first year of college, but also made me discover that no, I don't want to do what someone else is telling me to do all my life. I don't want to make drugs by the formula that someone else discovered, but I want to do the discovering and be bossy and tell all the pharmacists how to make the drugs. But then it went deeper than that, and no, I don't want to learn chemistry by just the chemistry book, but I want to learn chemistry along with physics. And then, I want to study both Physics and Chemistry together, and use both of them on a daily basis in my research. He made me realize that I was good at Physics, and made it so much fun. It came easy to me, just like the Chemistry. And when the Chemistry was hard, I relied on the Physics, and it never let me down. Professor Wiggins would have a demonstration of Physics pretty much every day in lecture, so that we could understand why we were learning an equation, or where this certain thing fit into the overall concept. And I'm not Professor Wiggins, but I can tell you that he loved his lab coat. He wore it for pretty much every demonstration, even when there was absolutely no danger whatsoever. And to make matters even better, there was a mysterious red stain on the back. Me and my friend speculated that it was from a murder, but you didn't hear it from me first. So, I am naming my Lab Coat after my Physics Professor, Wiggins. I will probably end up wearing it more than Professor Wiggins ever did, using every opportunity as an excuse to research and experiment and just to science. Maybe I'll even wear it to church.

All that being said, I really do love Harrison and Wiggins. I'm so glad that I found my favorite green safety goggles and my stark white lab coat. And I get excited every time I see them, more excited when I get to put them on and use them in the lab, and even more ecstatic when I think about using them in a nice lab for my future research. Until then, I will continue to be excited about just being able to use them on a weekly basis. Stay wild, flower child.