Chemical SciencesSubstack

Corin Wagen

Corin Wagen
My personal blog, focusing on issues of chemistry and metascience, unified by trying to answer the question "how can we make science better"?
Home PageRSS Feed
language
Chemical Sciences
Published

With apologies to Andrew Marvell. If you haven’t read “To His Coy Mistress”, I fear this won’t make much sense. Had we but funding enough and time, This coyness, founder, were no crime. We would sit down, and think which way To build, and pass our slow run-rate’s day. Thou by the Potomac’s side Shouldst SBIRs find; I by the tide Of El Segundo would complain.

Chemical Sciences
Published

(Previously: 2022, 2023.) #1. Baldassar Castiglione, The Book of the Courier This book gets cited from time to time as a sort of historical guide to "being cool," since the characters spend some time discussing the idea of sprezzatura , basically grace or effortlessness. More interesting to me was the differences between Renaissance conceptions of virtue, character, &

Chemical Sciences
Published

Much molecular design today can be boiled down to “put the right functional groups in exactly the right places.” In catalysis, proper positioning of functional groups to complement developing charge or engage in other stabilizing non-covalent interactions with the transition state can lead to vast rate accelerations.