Reactions: In defense of magical chemistry and in praise of C&EN

Letters to the editor

A recent letter to the editor criticized the use of the word magic in connection with chemical demonstrations (March 20/27, 2023, page 3). We think this view overlooks the common colloquial use of this word. Even with a small child, a parent will say, “What’s the magic word?” and the child knows the word please should have been spoken. In the child’s mind, there is no thought of prestidigitation.

We are the owners and managers of the chemistry education website CheMagic. The site offers free educational resources—a virtual molecular model kit, a stoichiometric calculator, a data-graphing resource, and chemical demonstration videos from our presentation “Is It Chemistry or Magic?” For 15 years, our presentation was part of the American Chemical Society Speaker Service. For 4 years, it was featured at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry’s annual high school days. The demonstrations and the word magic were also used in our nonmajor chemistry course at Illinois State University (about 30,000 students during our tenure).

In all our public presentations, we ended by asking a question: “So, is it chemistry or magic?” To this question we provided our own simple answer, “Yes, it is both!” We were confident that our grade-school-through-university audiences were savvy enough to understand the colloquial use of the word magic. In fact, the word chemagic has been in the chemical education vocabulary for many years. One of this letter’s authors (Otis) first encountered the word when his chemistry teacher father showed him an acetylene explosion in 1948. It’s one of the reasons Otis became a chemist.

Otis Rothenberger (Sublette, Illinois) and James Webb (Vassalboro, Maine)

I am a longtime member, and it has been enlightening and encouraging to read your recent editorials. Thank you for working to improve C&EN so that it substantially contributes to the essential knowledge of the profession and American Chemical Society members rather than focusing on the recent distractions that were foisted on readers by your predecessor.

Peter Hernandez
Milton, Georgia

I was unaware of the transition of C&EN to the new Communications Division and then after review by Albert G. Horvath, its return to the Publications Division.

I have been an American Chemical Society member for almost 60 years. C&EN has been my weekly “pulse” reading of academic and industrial chemistry. The magazine has changed little over my years as a student, research chemist, industrial chemist and business manager, and consultant. It provides facts and data in a direct and meaningful way annually. It notifies me of significant scientific and engineering breakthroughs, rewards and their recipients, and the groundbreaking new discoveries in chemistry, biochemistry, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and materials science. The magazine features key newsworthy items in these fields, provides a snapshot of leading news in Business Concentrates, and educates me on new breakthrough technologies and where they are headed. It features many environmental and climate change issues and how these will affect our industries. It discusses academic issues and educates us with Periodic Graphics on many interesting, everyday materials and topics. It goes in depth into environmental accidents, plant issues, laboratory accidents, etc.—a heads-up in a number of varied articles that factually report the detail to an audience that should learn from these. It is my weekly reader.

Most importantly, its presentation is detailed, factual, and middle of the road and unlike mainstream media has not succumbed to political bias. It is the flag-bearer publication of the health, issues, changes, advances, and struggles of our industry—with the sensitivity to report job openings, ACS news matters, and obituaries of industry and academic leaders and luminaries.

It’s just a wonderful magazine that practices good journalism, providing the atmosphere of what is underway in the industries and scientific academia that it covers.

Please keep it intact as “credible, authoritative journalism that chemical scientists need,” as noted in your editorial (C&EN, Feb. 20/27, 2023, page 2). I am pleased there is a Standards and Practices document that articulates the goals of this important, independent publication for the ever-changing staff.

Again, thank you for the detailed description of the recent past at C&EN.

David D. Taft
Traverse City, Michigan