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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
Member Is Offline
Mood: Waiting for spring
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Excuse Me Sir, Would You Like to Buy a Kilo of Isopropyl Bromide?
Columbia Organic Chemicals and its founder, Max Gergel, had the unusual honor of mention and praise by name in Kary Mullis's Nobel lecture:
| Quote: | | I never tired of tinkering in labs. During the summer breaks from Georgia Tech, Al Montgomery and I built an organic synthesis lab in an old chicken
house on the edge of town where we made research chemicals to sell. Most of them were noxious or either explosive. No one else wanted to make them,
somebody wanted them, and so their production became our domain. We suffered no boredom and no boss. We made enough money to buy new equipment. Max
Gergel, who ran Columbia Organic Chemicals Company, and who was an unusually nice man, encouraged us and bought most of our products, which he resold.
There were no government regulators to stifle our fledgling efforts, and it was a golden age, but we didn't notice it. We learned a lot of organic
chemistry. |
The chicken coop lab full of noxious chemicals isn't far removed from how Max Gergel got his start in the chemistry business either.
In this humorous, anecdotal chronicle of Max's life from high school mad scientist to successful operator of a chemical supply business, you'll learn
where metallic potassium should NOT be stored, how to prepare perfectly alcohol-free n-dodecyl bromide, and why one man would be crazy enough to want
a preparative scale procedure for methyl isocyanide. You'll also learn, humorously but quite clearly, how the golden age of "no government regulators"
contained the seeds of its own destruction, as horrendous odors, accidental poisonings, dumpings, fires, and miscellaneous accidents and occupational
hazards take their toll on Gergel and his employees, neighbors, and surrounding environs.
It's a short read, at only 199 pages, and now available in the Sciencemadness Library.
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S.C. Wack
bibliomaster
Posts: 2419
Registered: 7-5-2004
Location: Cornworld, Central USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Enhanced
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After doing all my scanning, the hints for using Scankromsator were finally translated from Russian.
http://www.djvu-soft.narod.ru/kromsator/eng.htm
Pressing buttons and seeing what happens may still be more helpful.
It is pretty slick, check out my later work. I wish now I'd known enough to make them all look like Weygand.
The Marianne Faithfull video is up to 666,480 now.
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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
Member Is Offline
Mood: Waiting for spring
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looking for ScanKromsator
Does anyone have a copy of ScanKromsator to share? It looks like it is no longer on bolega.hotmail.ru, and I have a hard time navigating
Russian-language sites in search of mirrors. Even if I can find a random rapidshare (or whatever) upload of it, I'd prefer to get a copy whose
provenance is a little more clear.
PGP Key and corresponding e-mail address
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S.C. Wack
bibliomaster
Posts: 2419
Registered: 7-5-2004
Location: Cornworld, Central USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Enhanced
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I have uploaded the same 5.6A that I used to 4shared. Never tried 5.91 or whatever.
[Marianne is now at 741,334, all the more amazing since all my favorite videos get deleted within a year and this is over 4 years. Thinking about
uploading another video.]
[Edited on 8-3-2011 by S.C. Wack]
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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
Member Is Offline
Mood: Waiting for spring
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Thanks, S.C. Wack.
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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
Member Is Offline
Mood: Waiting for spring
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Mellor's Comprehensive Treatise on Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry completed
I cannot take credit for scanning these books. They were scanned by S.C. Wack, Sauron, the Internet Archive, and the Digital Library of India. All I
can take credit for is repackaging some scans, doing minor cleanup, and bringing them all together in one place. All 16 volumes can now be found at http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/. The material scanned by Sauron had fallen offline for some time since the 4shared account I formerly
used for hosting was neglected.
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Arthur Dent
National Hazard
Posts: 553
Registered: 22-10-2010
Member Is Offline
Mood: entropic
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Thanks Polverone, I've been browsing through this immense treatise... That's one hell of a piece of work! I've seen this "Mellor" reference often
stated by members on SM, now I know!  I'll read the chapter on gold thoroughly!
Robert
--- Art is making something out of nothing and selling it. - Frank Zappa ---
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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
Member Is Offline
Mood: Waiting for spring
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The Scientific Method: A Personal Account of Unusual Projects in War and in Peace
Thanks go to Dr. Bob for bringing this book to my attention.
| Quote: | I was obliged to give up both undergraduate and graduate teaching, as well as ordinary research, early in the school year 1941-42, and my job was
taken over by Hans Heymann, informally at first and then by appointment. Douglas M. Bowen took over the lectures in the last war year. I do not recall
what arrangements were made, but the University records indicate that I was not granted a leave of absence and that I continued to receive my regular
salary. Apparently, for nearly four years, my services were contributed by Harvard, off the record, to the war effort.
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Louis Fieser joined the American war effort before America had even officially entered World War II, as one of 20 professor invited to the house of
Roger Adams in October 1940 to join the National Defense Research Committee. He was instructed early on to work on chemical vesicants but, considering
them inhumane, quickly made a lateral move to begin development of gelled gasoline incendiary weapons. He led the research effort behind napalm,
several other components of large-scale incendiary ordnance, and smaller special purpose incendiary devices for use by spies and saboteurs.
Fieser's strangest project was development of the Bat Bomb: a cluster-bomb arrangement of hibernating bats carrying time-delayed incendiaries. As the
bats fell from bombers over enemy cities, they would rouse from hibernation mid-air and seek shelter in attics of the city below. Their incendiaries
would then start concealed, hard-to-fight fires. The project was surprisingly successful for one never deployed, and included the own-goal immolation
of an administrative building during testing.
When Fieser was not working on setting fires he also had time to begin work on the first edition of his organic chemistry textbook, research cortisone
chemistry, and work on antimalarial drugs. The information given late in the book about getting cats to pose for photographs with chemical apparatus
is invaluable because it comes from real experience.
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Lambda-Eyde
National Hazard
Posts: 857
Registered: 20-11-2008
Location: Norway
Member Is Offline
Mood: Cleaved
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Thanks, Polverone. Would you say that this book is in the same alley as Max Gergel's book? If so, I'll have to read it. I absolutely LOVED that one,
and I can't describe how thankful I am that you uploaded it!
This just in: 95,5 % of the world population lives outside the USA
You should really listen to ABBAPlease drop by our IRC channel: #sciencemadness @ irc.efnet.org
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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
Member Is Offline
Mood: Waiting for spring
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Quote: Originally posted by Lambda-Eyde  | | Thanks, Polverone. Would you say that this book is in the same alley as Max Gergel's book? If so, I'll have to read it. I absolutely LOVED that one,
and I can't describe how thankful I am that you uploaded it!
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Yes, I'd say it is in a similar spirit. I'm glad that you enjoyed the Gergel book; it's one of my favorites.
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Magpie
lab constructor
Posts: 5939
Registered: 1-11-2003
Location: USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Chemistry: the subtle science.
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Thanks to you and Dr Bob for posting this book by Louis Fieser. My first organic textbook that I used back in 1962 was written by Fieser. He has
always seemed to be a strong contributor to organic chemistry as well as being an interesting person.
I also enjoyed the book by Gergel.
The single most important condition for a successful synthesis is good mixing - Nicodem
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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
Member Is Offline
Mood: Waiting for spring
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The Ageless Gergel
In 1986, an EPA project manager named Dennis Manganiello wrote to the former president of South Carolina Recycling and Disposal, Inc. inquiring about
any future plans for this Superfund site, plagued with soil and groundwater contamination plus unidentified drums of material still on site.
The former president wrote back:
| Quote: | Dear Mr. Manganiello,
Thank you for the help you have given me, Mr. Chase and my attorney Mr. Foard. Some time this nightmare should lift and we should be able to sell
antiques and old books at Dixiana which is what we are hoping to do -- and why Chase and I pay the taxes. I am 65 and out of chemistry except as a
writer and consultant.
Sincerely,
Max G. Gergel
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Gergel's response also attached a complete photocopy of a book review by Stephen Stinson from Chemical & Engineering News reviewing his
latest, The Ageless Gergel. It begins:
| Quote: |
For Max Gergel's friends in the chemical industry, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that Gergel remembers and treasures his
friendships. The bad news is that he's blessed with total recall, and he's telling everything...
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Gergel's firstborn company, Columbia Organic Chemicals, also grew up to be a strapping adult Superfund site. This book and his prior Excuse Me
Sir, Would You Like to Buy a Kilo of Isopropyl Bromide? immortalize the good old days before government cared what chemical companies dumped in
the bushes or told employees when to wear safety equipment, as well as foreshadowing why this freewheeling age could not last. I suspect that
similarly rich memories are even now being made among the smaller chemical companies of China and India. As Gergel puts it,
"We had several things going for us. Above all, cheap prices, because I and my employees were wretchedly paid and miserly about purchasing. We
appealed to the thrifty. We also excelled in preparing chemicals so toxic that only the desperate, staffed by the ignorant, would care to make them.
We had many friends."
The truth of this friendship lives on in footnotes to many a procedure in JACS or Organic Syntheses, giving Columbia Organic Chemicals as a commercial
supplier for necessary materials.
Many thanks go to Dr. Bob for locating and originally scanning a copy of this book. I have done some minor cleanup and placed it in the forum library.
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Mush
National Hazard
Posts: 632
Registered: 27-12-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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Some books have disappeared from the SM library.  I recall a very old chemical
dictionary from 1880's. What has happened to them?
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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
Member Is Offline
Mood: Waiting for spring
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| Quote: Originally posted by Mush | | Some books have disappeared from the SM library. I recall a very old chemical
dictionary from 1880's. What has happened to them? |
I previously included Watts' Dictionary of Chemistry. I have removed it because:
-The image quality of that particular scan was poor
-The poor image quality meant image compression worked poorly, so the files were large
-It is now available in better quality from Google Books, Hathitrust, and archive.org
I also purged some other books on ozone, carbohydrates, and other topics that were printed before 1923 and had poor scan quality. Back when I started
the SM library there were many fewer sources for scans of out-of-copyright chemistry books, so it made sense to include books even if certain pages
were barely legible. Today it does not make sense to include low-quality scans of books available elsewhere. I have tried to pare the collection down
to books that are not easily found elsewhere or that deserve special notice even when available elsewhere.
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franklyn
International Hazard
Posts: 3026
Registered: 30-5-2006
Location: Da Big Apple
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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- I'm logged in
Library books won't download for me
I only get a 100 kilobytes and it cuts out.
This message appears in my Foxit reader
" Format error , not a pdf or corrupted "
Next time I try , download proceeds immediately without
the dialog window in which I assign destination. The result
is the same " Format error , not a pdf or corrupted "
.
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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
Member Is Offline
Mood: Waiting for spring
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| Quote: Originally posted by franklyn | - I'm logged in
Library books won't download for me
I only get a 100 kilobytes and it cuts out.
This message appears in my Foxit reader
" Format error , not a pdf or corrupted "
Next time I try , download proceeds immediately without
the dialog window in which I assign destination. The result
is the same " Format error , not a pdf or corrupted "
. |
The current library hosting site has problems with longer downloads. You will need to use a download manager to get complete books. Your web browser's
default file handling will not retrieve full books.
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Mush
National Hazard
Posts: 632
Registered: 27-12-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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Thanks a lot Polverone!
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S.C. Wack
bibliomaster
Posts: 2419
Registered: 7-5-2004
Location: Cornworld, Central USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Enhanced
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Not sure if it's worth mentioning or not...for a month or two now as everyone else on the internet is already aware, Adobe has been giving away their
Creative Suite with serial from their site. In big and component pieces for certain flushed turds of windows, and somehow freely available for
applers.
The catch is, it's the same not so current CS2 I already have on CD's somewhere. At the very least it doesn't come with some suspect keygen, and may
work on some old computers. You've probably got a photoshop and piratebat pro >9 installed already, but btw the indesign part is allegedly useful
for making books, format templates, entire journals if you're going to start publishing one; typesetting and such for people who want to use the worst
available application. No doubt members with such interests know tex/latex up/down/sideways already and/or have pro software.
adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/index.html
When not installing photoshop, indesign, and illustrator separately, there may be problems when not using discs in XP; problems were fixed in Vista:
Run disc3.exe first (tell computer install correct), change disc2 extract location to 3's, then the install starts on 1. Change location of the
indesign and version cue folders from outside to within the Adobe Creative Suite 2.0 folder as it asks for disc 2, press ok. I actually used the mac
serial by mistake.
[Edited on 17-2-2013 by S.C. Wack]
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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
Member Is Offline
Mood: Waiting for spring
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Perchloric Acid and Perchlorates by Alfred Schilt
Dr. Bob provided me with raw scans for this book more than a year ago. I have, shamefully, not undertaken to convert it to final form and upload it
until today.
http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/perchloric_a...
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CuReUS
National Hazard
Posts: 928
Registered: 9-9-2014
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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| Quote: Originally posted by Mephisto |
Note: Next month the following books will be available: "Warren, S. - Organische Retrosynthese.pdf" and "Christine L. Willis, Martin Willis -
Syntheseplanung in der Organischen Chemie.pdf"
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where did mephisto upload these books?
| Quote: Originally posted by Polverone | | The 1-page PDF thing is universal. The link indicates that it is intended as a convenience for printing a page. If you can view (say) page 100 in the
browser, you can view the full thing. In order to download the full book you need to use a program like Hathi Helper. I was able to use that earlier today to download all the page images. |
the Hati helper link is not working.could someone please upload it to the SM library ?
[Edited on 16-2-2015 by CuReUS]
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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
Member Is Offline
Mood: Waiting for spring
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Approximate Molecular Orbital Theory by Pople and Beveridge
This one is only interesting for theoreticians, programmers, and historians.
Before John Pople did the work in <i>ab initio</i> quantum chemistry that won him a Nobel Prize, he worked with what are today called
semiempirical computational chemistry methods, methods that replace some intensive numerical operations with data derived from experiments. This 1970
book covers the early CNDO and INDO semiempirical models along with much background material. Donald Shillady of Virginia Commonwealth University has
recommended this text even for modern students as providing "an exceptionally clear presentation" of the basic Restricted Hartree-Fock algorithm that
is the starting point for most modern computational chemistry.
http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/approximate_...
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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
Member Is Offline
Mood: Waiting for spring
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Unitized Experiments in Organic Chemistry by Brewster and Vanderwerf
Magpie has graced us with accounts of several preparations taken from the pages of Brewster's Unitized Experiments in Organic Chemistry. The version I
have scanned here is from 1960 and, alas, does not include preparations mentioned from later editions. At the time I purchased it this was the only
edition carried by any reseller on Amazon. In any case I hope it proves useful to members who wish to follow along with Magpie, or use it for any
other purpose.
http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/unitized_exp...
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