this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] LordTrychon@startrek.website 24 points 10 months ago (1 children)

In his essay "To Tell a Chemist" (1965), Asimov proposed a simple shibboleth for distinguishing chemists from non-chemists: ask the person to read the word "unionized". Chemists, he noted, will read un-ionized (electrically neutral), while non-chemists will read union-ized (belonging to a trade union).

[–] waz@feddit.uk 4 points 10 months ago

Or some will say it’s spelled incorrectly

[–] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 20 points 10 months ago

If you don't think about it very hard, solidarity is basically macro ionization

[–] djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 points 10 months ago
[–] BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works 15 points 10 months ago

Ah, because of the ions.

Took me eons.

[–] Vanth@reddthat.com 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

My initial thought was "would chemists theoretically be less into labor protections than plumbers"?

I guess that puts me in a third bucket.

[–] wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Am a chemist in your group. I read it the plumber way too. Took me several seconds to get it.

[–] AlligatorBlizzard@sh.itjust.works 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Good luck finding the chemistry teacher, though.

[–] wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

As a leftist chemistry teacher, I read it as "having attained union", rather than "not ionized", so YMMV with this heuristic

ETA: (also, yeah, I have excellent job security until all public schools are abolished in the US)

[–] ornery_chemist@mander.xyz 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

What about ChemE then? They're both. Sort of. Okay maybe they're not chemists, but... chemistry-adjacent.

[–] General_Effort@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.