General Discussion

Whether they're valid is not for me to say, but I do recall that when I faced very challenging problems in higher math, sometimes I'd fall asleep after not knowing what to do, and woke up with the solution on my fingertips. That also happened in my laboratory career.

As for your experience of organic chemistry, you remember the beautiful part, the story of the dream. Almost every organic chemistry student has heard it.

It may be apocryphal; we'll never know:

It appears he told the story long after actually publishing his theory on benzene, which was questioned on the basis of the absence of some isomers. For example, were he correct about stationary double bonds, there would be two isomers of every ortho (1,2 substituted) compound, one where the substituents were on the same double bond, and one where they were on adjacent double bonds.

He modified his theory to allow for interconversion of the bonds; when I was a kid that's what I believed, that there were stable bonds that moved. I was, of course, entirely wrong but as a kid there was no one to tell me. I was just looking at the pictures. Some people still write aromatic structures showing localized double bonds..

It turns out that the "pi" bonds are delocalized, the orbitals are "smeared" over and under the plane of the molecule. This happens whenever there are 4n+2 electrons in a ring, where n is 0, 1, 2, 3... We call this "aromatic bonding" Conversely if there are 4n electrons in a ring, the system is "antiaromatic" and is destabilized. This is why a three membered ring, strained as it is, with a single double bond is relatively stable, and a four membered ring with two double bonds is very unstable and transitory.

Kekule's greatest contribution was to connect chemistry and structure. It's obvious now, but in his time, the mid 19th century it wasn't obvious at all. He developed the theory of valence as part of this theory.

(I'm sure you wanted an organic chemistry lesson late in life; it's never too late.)

As for your real life, I recall very well being a first time parent - I was in my early 40's, my wife entering her thirties. We were filled with questions and excitement. We'd been married nine years, and for the first time we were in a position to be parents. It turns out that for all the anticipation and sought advice, my son's birth was very problematic; I worried I would lose my wife, and my son was born with a birth defect that might have been very serious, but happily he missed the possible worst. We were excited, of course, to be parents, but terrified that something major might be wrong, even that either the baby or my wife wouldn't make it. (He's fine today; he just turned 30 and works in academia, his "defect" proved to be merely cosmetic. We of course love him very much, as does, it appears, his latest girlfriend.)

My wife is fine as well. I get to die first, which makes me happy.

I, and to a lesser extent my wife, was terrified of having a second child, but my wife talked me into it because she felt my son needed a sibling. I was against it at first, but on reflection; my second son's birth actually brought great joy into our house between the brothers and their parents. Although they live far apart, they are very close to one another. I absolutely love eavesdropping on their conversations when they're together; they are very smart men. I can't wait for Christmas, when the little guy will come home.

I very much appreciate the care and concern of medical professionals, and I'm pleased to learn you enjoyed your career. You probably did better getting that C in organic chemistry. You didn't fail, and you remembered the beautiful part, Kekule and his dream.

Forget about the soap, and be glad you learned not to do what I did, breathe in dangerous chemicals. I am ashamed to say I know the smell of phosgene very well. If I'd been more careful and safety oriented, I wouldn't know that.