Nobel Week 2019

I do love Nobel week. It's like the playoffs for nerds. Speaking of that, I missed blogging about the updated names to the periodic table. For a long time, we had cool latin U-names for 111-118, but they've been given names. See below

• Ununbium , [Uub], (112) = Coper­nicium (Cn)
• Ununhexium , [Uuh], (116) = Liver­morium (Lv) 
• Ununoctium , [Uuo], (118) = Oga­nesson (Og)
• Ununpentium , [Uup], (115) = Moscov­ium (Mc)
• Ununquadium , [Uuq], (114) = Flerov­ium (Fl)
• Ununseptium , [Uus], (117) = Tenness­ine (Ts)
• Ununtrium , [Uut], (113) = Nihon­ium (Nh) 
• Ununium , [Uuu], (111) = Roent­genium (Rg)

Liver­morium may now be the funniest name. It's named for the lab, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which in turn is named for the town of Livermore, CA which was named after some random dude Livermore.

Part of my investigation is to find out how many of the people the elements are named after are Jewish (pride can be a bad or a good thing). Einsteinium is the only one I knew about, but maybe the new ones too, mayhap perchance.

So which ones are named after people?  Looking at this list, I see they link to an awesome Wiki resource page which does much of the work for me!

Here's the people the elements are named for; almost by sociological definition, any scientist before the 20th century wasn't Jewish because we were denied access to education and major professions. Marie Curie was a Catholic agnostic, the 2 recent Russians -- Georgy Flyorov, Yuri Oganessian -- could be but are it's unlikely, while Ernest Lawrence & Glenn T. Seaborg & Neils Bohr were Scandanavian (so most likely christian), but now I see, according to Wiki, that while Neils Bohr's father was Christian Bohr, his mother (Ellen Adler) was Jewish:

Bohr was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 7 October 1885, the second of three children of Christian Bohr, a professor of physiology at the University of Copenhagen, and Ellen Adler Bohr, who came from a wealthy Danish Jewish family prominent in banking and parliamentary circles.

Oh, and #109 Meitnerium is another element named for a woman: Lise Meitner, who is Jewish. A Jewish woman on the periodic table! How did I miss that?!

She was born Elise Meitner on 7 November 1878 into a Jewish upper-middle-class family in Vienna, 2nd district (Leopoldstadt), the third of eight children. Her father Philipp Meitner was one of the first Jewish lawyers in Austria. ... As an adult, she converted to Christianity, following Lutheranism, and was baptized in 1908.

So, there are 3: Einstein, Bohr, and Meitner.  But Einstein is the only one who stayed Jewish.

Postscript:

For thoroughness sake, would it be terribly wrong to just cut and paste the list? I'm a bad boy.

Element				Individual(s)
Z	Name	Symbol	Discovery	Immediate namesake	Name	Specialty	Lifespan	Nationality
62	Samarium	Sm	1879	the mineral samarskite	Vasili Samarsky-Bykhovets	Mining engineer	1803–1870	Russian
64	Gadolinium	Gd	1886	the mineral gadolinite	Johan Gadolin	Scientist	1760–1852	Finnish
95	Americium	Am	1944	the continents of the Americas	Amerigo Vespucci	Explorer	1454–1512	Italian
96	Curium	Cm	1944		Marie Curie Pierre Curie	Scientist Scientist	1867–1934 1859–1906	Polish-French French
97	Berkelium	Bk	1949	the city Berkeley, California	George Berkeley	Philosopher	1685–1753	Irish
99	Einsteinium	Es	1952		Albert Einstein	Scientist	1879–1955	German-Swiss
100	Fermium	Fm	1952		Enrico Fermi	Scientist	1901–1954	Italian-American
101	Mendelevium	Md	1955		Dmitri Mendeleev	Scientist	1834–1907	Russian
102	Nobelium	No	1958		Alfred Nobel	Scientist	1833–1896	Swedish
103	Lawrencium	Lr	1961		Ernest Lawrence	Scientist	1901–1958	American
104	Rutherfordium	Rf	1964		Ernest Rutherford	Scientist	1871–1937	New Zealand-British
106	Seaborgium	Sg	1974		Glenn T. Seaborg	Scientist	1912–1999	American
107	Bohrium	Bh	1981		Niels Bohr	Scientist	1885–1962	Danish
109	Meitnerium	Mt	1982		Lise Meitner	Scientist	1878–1968	Austrian-Swedish
111	Roentgenium	Rg	1994		Wilhelm Röntgen	Scientist	1845–1923	German
112	Copernicium	Cn	1996		Nicolaus Copernicus	Scientist	1473–1543	Polish-German
114	Flerovium	Fl	1998		Georgy Flyorov	Scientist	1913–1990	Russian
116	Livermorium	Lv	2000	the city Livermore, California and the Lawrence Livermore Lab[2]	Robert Livermore	Land owner	1799–1858	English-Mexican
118	Oganesson	Og	2002		Yuri Oganessian	Scientist	1933–	Russian

Slichot, Some Thoughts

We're nearing the end of the Slichot period of Elul-Tishrei 5779-5780. Some quick thoughts:

1. For me, I share a brotherhood with those who've have to lead slichot. The stress is enormous because the words are purposeful tongue-twisters, the text is said only one day a year, and it needs to be done super quickly. Bravo to you, my brothers. I feel your pain
2. It's hilarious that the first slicha is often on theme of "it's so early in the morning!"
3. Thank God for the Artscroll. I can complain about a number of their choices, but you need to have lived in a world without them to know why they've transformed the facility of Jewish prayer in the world

Term Search: Iago Moment

There are many concepts that are clear to my way of thinking that - as far as I know - have not entered into our general language. My vocabulary is large and I have multiple degrees and yet I feel that these ideas have not been given social expression via a word or phrase. So I'm going to use this blog to flesh these ideas out. If anyone knows a term for these ideas, please comment below.

The Iago Moment: when a new piece of data changes your previous understanding to the exact opposite conclusion.

This is based on the game 'Othello' which has black pieces that will switch to white, and vice-versa, when bookended by that color. This is the closest item in my culture and experience that depicts the time of idea switching inherent in the concept. A row of black pieces, when you add one more datum, all turns to white.

The name 'Othello' comes from the Shakespeare play and since it's a game of black-and-white pieces, and the title character's race (African) is instrumental to the plot, I understand why the game was named that. But it still feels racist to me. Iago, on the other hand, is the play's antagonist, so I might as well keep the game & name but evade the overt racial message.

Whoa, I have 1066 Drafts

Not sure if I should be scared or elated but blogger tells me I have 1066 drafts of unfinished blog posts, compared to 1699 published. This will be an exciting exercise in reconstructing my brain patterns from years gone by

What's Been Happening Anyway?

So, what content can you expect in the contemporary Styx?

1. Sports (my biggest hobby, see a future post for why)

2. Jewish studies across the board, mainly social sciences and the old fashioned Rabbi-Doctor topics (i.e. what all rabbis with Jewish Studies doctorates seem to do: Jewish life issues with a glaze of scholarship)

3. Politics (none of this should be new, but the age of Trump (ym"sh) has made this crucial)

4. Footnotes, in a way, for my Twitter feed

5. Medical sociology stuff. My dissertation was on end-of-life issues but I've done work since then on the anti-vax movement and disabilities

6. I'll try to publish my sermons here as well. I don't speak often, though

7. Parenting, and things my kids are into and experiencing. All of my kids are in middle school or above

Yeah, for old time readers, this sounds familiar. But I am trying to be thorough.

Back after 4 years

I curtailed my blogging when I was finishing my dissertation and - foolishly - felt that I'd be better off writing 'blog' style posts on F*acebook rather than this clunky ol' website. But right after the election of Trump (ym'sh), I fled FB for two big reasons:

(1) I discovered that they were stealing my phone text messages, which prompted me to research & realize that they were basically operating as a computer virus
(2) I saw normal people become deranged by FB's polarization. I think it's a destructive & evil platform. Basically the computer equivalent of Oxycontin: designed to help, has a veneer of beneficence, but operationally addictive and destructive

I always knew that the near future would be fought by tech titans - much like the oil/energy companies of decades past - and I need to choose sides: Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, and/or uh, AOL? Do they still exist? Anyway. I guess I currently trust google more than others, but all are robber-baron style octopi and we must all be careful

All told, I will try to write more on the blog, because I have a big backlog of material. I do have a twitter feed and I spend most of my time there, but decent writing is hard to produce (limits of the form etc, I'm sure there's some good scholarly work on this)

Anyway, it's good to be back. Let's see if it sticks