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Chemical Haiku: Elements' Qualities in a Few Syllables

Posted by timothy on from the atomically-pithy dept.

Frr pointed out this interesting approach to the periodic table: Haiku. This might even help you remember the elements.

23 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. Other kinds of poems might be better? by DeepDarkSky · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Poems rhyme and have a regular meter and that's what makes it easier for us to remember (songs with catchy, rhyming lyrics are the same). Haikus are not exactly easier to remember because they don't rhyme (although the fixed number of syllables help).

    I could be wrong, but I think it might be better to use another kind of poetry for this?

  2. Too late... by Capt'n+Hector · · Score: 4, Funny

    I already memorized the Tom Leher song.

    --
    Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
    Africus aut Europaeus?
    1. Re:Too late... by F�an�ro · · Score: 3, Informative

      There is a very good animated flash version of that song available here .

  3. that's gonna help? by larry+bagina · · Score: 4, Offtopic
    So instead of having to remember 100 elements, now you can make life easier and remember 100 elements + 100 elements * 17 syllables?

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  4. Haiku about aforementioned haikus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Come on WTF?
    Some of those are not haikus
    chemists are retards

    Hint: read heliums...

  5. I got one for you.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Science and Poems
    Merged in novel harmony
    But for what purpose?

  6. I still prefer Lehrer's approach... by Exantrius · · Score: 4, Informative

    Lyrics and all can be found here:
    lyrics and quicktime versions of Tom Lehrer's Elements song /ex

  7. funny one! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    This one for barium just cracks me up!

    the bitter cocktail
    of a colonoscopy --
    grin and barium

  8. hmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Element poems
    Until Slashdotted link.
    I am sad.

  9. What a waste of mental effort by The+Tyro · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is anyone actually forced to memorize the periodic table these days? Talk about a pointless rote memorization task...

    I thought "learning" like this went the way of the dinosaurs in the 80's (of course, I teach on the university level, so I'm a bit removed from elementary education). Can any education types confirm that this kind of thing still goes on?

    I subscribe to the penguin theory of learning. After a certain point, your brain only holds so many recallable facts, just like an iceberg can hold only so many penguins. After that, for each new one you add, an old one must be shoved off (or at least relegated to subconscious long-term storage). I know memory is theoretically infinite, and that everything we learn is supposedly deep down in there somewhere, waiting for the right moment to be dredged up... but this kind of memorization is a waste of space on the iceberg.

    No way in sacrificing childhood memories for the periodic table... too easy to just go look up a copy.

    --
    Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
    1. Re:What a waste of mental effort by ramzak2k · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Your argument sounds like

      "why waste precious use of mental resources by making students multiply and divide instead of handing them over calculaters ?"

      There arent many who subscribe to the iceberg theory that you have mentioned. Memory is just like any other muscle - train it , keep it sharp and it will help you. Knowing to memorize something like the periodic table after all involves knowing what exactly helps your brain remember things - for some it might be a rhyme like the haiku and for others it could be pictures for association . Either way, it helps develop a skill!

      --

      Siggy Say, Siggy Do
    2. Re:What a waste of mental effort by arvindn · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Is anyone actually forced to memorize the periodic table these days? Talk about a pointless rote memorization task...

      I thought "learning" like this went the way of the dinosaurs in the 80's (of course, I teach on the university level, so I'm a bit removed from elementary education). Can any education types confirm that this kind of thing still goes on?

      I'm from India, and I can confirm that such pointless torture of students is the norm here :(

      I was forced to memorize the periodic table when I was in high school.

      Not only that, no calculators allowed until you are in university. Every time someone tries to change it, the luddites start screaming that use of calculators harms the students' powers of mental arithmetic and so on.

      In the case of the periodic table, though, I'm actually not sure it is completely pointless: the properties of the elements are to a great extent dependent on their position in the table. If you involuntarily "see" an element in its position in the table whenever it is talked about, then you get to correlate its properties to its position much better, and you understand it better.

      At least, that's the idea. The question is whether the purported gains are worth the effort.

      I subscribe to the penguin theory of learning. After a certain point, your brain only holds so many recallable facts, just like an iceberg can hold only so many penguins. After that, for each new one you add, an old one must be shoved off (or at least relegated to subconscious long-term storage). I know memory is theoretically infinite, and that everything we learn is supposedly deep down in there somewhere, waiting for the right moment to be dredged up... but this kind of memorization is a waste of space on the iceberg.
      I'm not sure about the waste of space part. Sure, brain space is finite. However, you remember a zillion important details about your everyday life. The more things you consciously memorize, the faster the useless things are going to get dumped out of your brain. And memorizing more actually makes you better at storing and recalling things. OTOH, this kind of memorization is a huge waste of time, and is hence unjustifiable.

      BTW, some people might _want_ to memorize completely pointless things by rote for whatever reason. For instance, I memorized 1000 digits of pi :-)

  10. 56 Barium by circletimessquare · · Score: 4, Funny

    "56 Barium
    the bitter cocktail
    of a colonoscopy --
    grin and barium"

    lesson for us all:
    nerds good at periodic,
    bad at humorous.

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  11. Comic genius by The+Tyro · · Score: 3


    I still think some of his finest work was embodied in the old classic poisoning pigeons in the park.

    I love that one...

    --
    Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
  12. If you want to get technical... by Cyno01 · · Score: 5, Informative

    None of these are true haikus. A true haiku has 5-7-5 sylables and must have a kigo or seasonal theme.

    --
    "Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
  13. Re:Haiku? by rev.felix · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well, the 5-7-5 is often adhered to in Japanese haiku, but as I understand it, the idea of the haiku is to express some thought with a certain sort of spontenaity. It's more about method than form. The idea is to be contemplating some idea, and then simply write the haiku immediately without deliberating about how to fit it into some arbitrary form. My understanding is that the 5-7-5 myth is akin to "Columbus discovered america" that I also learned in 4th grade -- it's so oversimplified that it is no longer strictly true.

  14. A little chant... by Colz+Grigor · · Score: 5, Interesting
    My father, a chemical engineer, was forced to learn this chant in his days at RPI. He taught it to me during junior year chemistry in high school. It helped a lot in remembering valences. Heck, without it, I doubt I'd even remember what a valence was...

    HAgLiNaK HAgLiNaK
    CuBaCaFePbZnMg
    AlFeBiNiKr AlFeBiNiKr
    SiC SiC SiC

    Phoenetically:
    Haglinak, haglinak
    koobakafapibzinmig
    alfabiniker alfabiniker
    sick sick sick

    Yeah, so this isn't quite a haiku, but it got me by. Only other thing he taught me from his RPI days, the RPI Cheer:
    e to the x, dy/dx
    e to the x, dy
    cosine, secant, tangent, sine
    three point one four one five nine
    square root, cubed root, log of pi
    disintegrate 'em RPI!

    I guess what I really learned was that a bunch of nerds went to RPI.

    ::Colz Grigor

    1. Re:A little chant... by Spunk · · Score: 3, Interesting
      the RPI Cheer:
      e to the x, dy/dx
      e to the x, dy
      cosine, secant, tangent, sine
      three point one four one five nine
      square root, cubed root, log of pi
      disintegrate 'em RPI!

      The RPI Cheer, you say? Interesting. My Alma Mater calls it the WPI Fight Song. And supposedly we stole it from MIT anyway :-p

      ...


      Holy crap. After searching google, quite a few other schools call it their own:

      Caltech, Georgia Tech, Rice, Purdue, Princeton, Carnegie Mellon, Rose-Hulman, Northwestern

  15. If you want to get more technical... by chiasmus1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The real Japanese haikus can have 5,7,5 syllables, but it is not the syllables that are counted. The Japanese count the letters, which I might add can sometimes be only part of a syllable.
    ryo is a combination of ri and yo, but makes one syllable. It would be counted as two letters. On the other hand, n can be by itself. As in something like the Karate Kids Daniel-san. Sa and n are different letters and count as two, but they form a single syllable.

  16. Sesame-Street-Alphabet-Song method by sanqui · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I remember Big Bird singing a song about an incredible word: Ab-ca-def-ghi-jk-l-m-nop-... you get the idea. The day before my Grade 11 Chemistry Exam I used the same method, and can still bring it back 10 years later:

    H-HeLi-BeB-C-NOF-Ne
    NaM-gAlSiPS-ClArKCa
    Sc-TiV-Cr-Mn-FeCoNi-CuZn

    Not the most attractive (or pronouncable) words, but it worked for me...

  17. Not Haiku... by krugdm · · Score: 3, Funny

    When Hydrogen Tech played Oxygen U,
    the game had just begun,
    when Hydrogen racked up two fast points,
    and Oxygen still had none.

    Then Oxygen scored a single goal,
    and thus it did remain,
    at Hydrogen 2 and Oxygen 1,
    called because of rain.

  18. Memorizing the Periodic Table by Arrgh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In grade 8 we were asked to memorize the first twenty elements of the periodic table. Of course I put it off way too long and ended up cramming the night before the test. So I just made up a little mnemonic poem. Here it is in phonetic form:

    Hydrogen Helim Lithium Beryllium (that's as far as I got with the names)
    Bicknoffnee Namgal Sipsclarkca

    In symbolic form, that's H He Li Be B C N O F Ne Na Mg Al Si P S Cl Ar K Ca. Can't forget the damned thing after seventeen years.

  19. The obligatory chemisty poem.... that rhymes. by Nick+Driver · · Score: 4, Funny

    A mosquito was heard to complain
    That a chemist had poisoned his brain
    The cause of his sorrow
    Was para-dichloro-
    diphenyltrichloroethane

    Bwahahaha, that's funny, now everybody laugh :-|