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"The ideal chemical process is that which a one-armed operator can perform by pouring the reactants into a bath tub and collecting pure product from the drain hole."

Sir John Cornforth

"If you look in old chemistry books you see all those line cuts of laboratory experiments in cross-section.
The sign for water is a containing line, the meniscus
(which rarely curls up the walls of the beaker),
and below it a sea of straight horizontal dashes carefully unaligned vertically. Every cork or rubber stopper
is cutaway. You can see inside every vessel without reflections, without getting wet, and explore every kink in a copper condenser. Flames are outlined cypresses
or a tulip at dawn, and some Klee arrows help to move gases and liquids the right way. Sometimes a disembodied hand holds up a flask. Sometimes there is an unblinking observer's eye. Around 1920 photoengraving became economically feasible and took over. Seven-story distillation columns (polished up for the occasion), like giant clarinets, rose in every text, along
with heaps of chemicals, eventually in color. Suddenly
water and glass, all reflection became difficult.
One had to worry about light, about the sex
and length of dress or cut of suit of the person sitting at the controls of this impressive Car models and hairstyles
dated the books more than the chemistry in them.
Around that time teachers noted a deterioration
in the students' ability to follow a simple experimental procedure."

Roald Hoffmann