🚀 go-pugleaf

Since I mentioned this poem a week or so ago, I've had several requests
concerning it.  Here it is in full, with thanks to John Updike for a
wonderful way of looking at solids.

This poem was originally published in the January 1969
Scientific American.  It was inspired by the September
1967 special issue on materials.  The poem also may be
found in the book _Midpoint_and_Other_Poems_ by Updike,
published by Knopf; and in Anne McCaffrey's _Alchemy_
and_Academe_.

I have typed the poem with the same structure used by
Updike.  I think it is intended to suggest a periodic
lattice structure.

-Bill Gawne,  Space Telescope Science Institute
 December 1992
=======================================================
THE DANCE OF THE SOLIDS
by John Updike

All things are Atoms:  Earth and Water, Air
  And Fire, all, Democritus foretold.
  Swiss Paracelsus, in's alchemic lair,
  Saw Sulfur, Salt, and Mercury unfold
  Amid Millenial hopes of faking Gold.
  Lavoisier dethroned Phlogiston; then
  Molecular Analysis made bold
  Forays into the gases: Hydrogen
Stood naked in the dazzled sight of Learned Men.

The Solid State, however, kept its grains
  Of Microstructure coarsely veiled until
  X-ray diffraction pierced the Crystal Planes
  That roofed the giddy Dance, the taut Quadrille
  Where Silicon and Carbon Atoms will
  Link Valencies, four-figured, hand in hand
  With common Ions and Rare Earths to fill
  The lattices of Matter, Glass or Sand,
With tiny Excitations, quantitively grand.

The Metals, lustrous Monarchs of the Cave,
  Are ductile and conductive and opaque
  Because each Atom generously gave
  Its own Electrons to a mutual Stake,
  A Pool that acts as Bond.  The Ions take
  The stacking shape of Spheres, and slip and flow
  When pressed or dented; thusly Metals make
  A better Paper Clip than a Window,
Are vulnerable to Shear, and heated, brightly glow.

Ceramic, muddy Queen of human Arts,
  First served as simple Stone.  Feldspar supplied
  Crude Clay; and Rubies, Porcelain, and Quartz
  Came each to light.  Aluminum Oxide
  Is typical - a Metal is allied
  With Oxygen ionically; no free
  Electrons form a lubricating tide,
  Hence, Empresslike, Ceramics tend to be
Resistant, porous, brittle, and refractory.

Prince Glass, Ceramic's son, though crystal clear
  Is no wise crystalline.  The fond Voyeur
  And Narcissist alike devoutly peer
  Into  Disorder, the Disorder
  Being Covalent Bondings that prefer
  Prolonged Viscosity and spread loose nets
  Photons slip through.  The average Polymer
  Enjoys a Glassy state, but cools, forgets
To slump, and clouds in closely patterned Minuets.

The Polymers, those giant Molecules,
  Like Starch and Polyoxymethylene,
  Flesh out, as protein serfs and plastic fools,
  The Kingdom with Life's Stuff.  Our time has seen
  The synthesis of Polyisoprene
  And many cross-linked Helixes unknown
  To Robert Hooke; but each primordial Bean
  Knew Cellulose by heart; Nature alone
Of Collagen and Apatite compounded Bone.

What happens in these Lattices when Heat
  Transports Vibrations through a solid mass?
  T=3Nk is much too neat;
  A rigid Crystal's not a fluid Gas.
  Debye in 1912 proposed Elas-
  Tic Waves called phonons which obey Max Planck's
  Great Quantum Law.  Although amorphous Glass,
  Umklapp Switchbacks, and Isotopes play pranks
Upon his Formulae, Debye deserves warm Thanks.

Electroconductivity depends
  On Free Electrons:  in Germanium
  A touch of Arsenic liberates; in blends
  Like Nickel Oxide, Ohms thwart Current.  From
  Pure Copper threads to wads of Chewing Gum
  Resistance varies hugely.  Cold and Light
  As well as "doping" modify the sum
  Of Fermi Levels, Ion scatter, Site
Proximity, and other factors recondrite.

Textbooks and Heaven only are Ideal;
  Solidity is an imperfect state.
  Within the cracked and dislocated Real
  Nonstochiometric crystals dominate.
  Stray Atoms sully and precipitate;
  Strange holes, excitons, wander loose; because
  Of Dangling Bonds, a chemical Substrate
  Corrodes and catalyzes - surface Flaws
Help Epitaxial Growth to fix adsorptive claws.

White Sunlight, Newton saw, is not so pure;
  A Spectrum bared the Rainbow to his view.
  Each Element absorbs its signature:
  Go add a negative Electron to
  Potassium Chloride; it turns deep blue,
  As Chromium incarnadines Sapphire.
  Wavelengths, absorbed, are reemitted through
  Flourescence, Phosphorescence, and the higher
Intensities that deadly Laser Beams require.

Magnetic Atoms, such as Iron, keep
  Unpaired Electrons in their middle shell,
  Each one a spinning Magnet that would leap
  The Bloch Walls whereat antiparallel
  Domains converge.  Diffuse Material
  Becomes Magnetic when another Field
  Aligns domains like Seaweed in a swell.
  How nicely microscopic forces yield,
In Units growing Visible, the World we wield!