The Genie in the Bottle by Dr. Joe Schwartz was an extremely good way to teach chemistry. He offered a “different view” on chemistry that no many other people take, like the comic book we read. The book consists of sixty-seven commentaries all of which describe different aspects of chemistry. The book discusses things such as Internet pages that are misleading because of information that is not correct. Another topic that Schwartz discusses is how the sun is actually very harmful, more harmful then people actually know it to be. Schwartz goes into detail about sixty-five other commentaries in this book along with the sun and Internet. The most intriguing things the Schwartz discusses in his book were the effects of the sun, the Bunsen burner, how stress effects people, date rape drugs and what they do, and how something like rubber a useless rubber has been so popular.
In the chapter, “The Dark Side of the Sun” Schwartz explains how harmful the sun is to the human being. Back in the early 1900’s, when the ozone layer was not completely destroyed, the sun actually did good things to the people, it healed diseases. People were told to bath in the sun to heal some diseases by giving out vitamin D and if they did that now a day, they would just get skin cancer. The sun not only causes cancer, but it also creates wrinkles. Therefore, sun lotion was invented which helps protect people from the sun. Yet, even with the great invention of sun lotion it is still not a good idea to be in the sun all day. Sun lotion doesn’t work all the time and rubs off in water for the most part. The sun if still a very dangerous object and people don’t give it the respect it deserves. Sun lotion does not make you immune to the sun and when people learn that there will be a lot less skin cancer. Along with the sun being a very dangerous thing, stress is also a very interesting topic.
In Schwartz’s chapter “Surviving the Rat Race” he explains how stress can be a dangerous thing. He starts off his story by explaining how he went to an assembly and only remembered the story about the drunken man. The man had a lot of stress when he was drunk because of his high blood pressure. They used rats to test out if blood pressure was caused by stress. They found out that it did and that rats acted just like humans with adrenaline. It turns out that heart pressure, sweating, and heartbeat are all affected by how much stress a person has. This all tied into his drunk person story because a drunk person has no control of their senses and can’t handle stress in certain situations. Therefore that is why some drunk people get into fights and others just laugh. It has been proven that therapy have been set up to help people handle their stress that they are having. The therapies make it so that people don’t experience pain (Brest cancer patients) or crazy. Along with stress being an interest topic, date rape drugs were also an interesting commentary.
“Nothing to Rave About” was a very interesting chapter. GHB (gamma hydroxybrutyrate) used to be a legal drug. It helped people on diets and also helped people gain quick muscle while lifting so they could get bigger quicker. Yet because this drug was so dangerous, they made it illegal soon after they had made it legal. Schwartz’s explains that even though they made it illegal people still use it all the time because it is one of the easiest drugs to make it. It consists of two things that people can buy in stores. He also explains that teenagers should be informed about how dangerous this drug is. Even though people say it’s dangerous they have to have it driven into their mind for them to know. Along with date rape drugs being an interesting topic, the Bunsen burner was another good commentary.
“Playing with Fire” discusses how the Bunsen burner came about. When the Bunsen burner was first made it had a bunch toxic gases that came out of it when it was used. Robert Bunsen, the creator, had to wear a gas mask when he used it. Not only did it release bad gas into the air, it was dangerous for people to be around. After one bad experience with a fly, Bunsen began to “play with fire”. It had a tube that let in air and had gas flowing through. He wanted to create a clean fire so he could see all the beautiful colors it created. The only way he could do this was to change the air so it was clean. He then created the Bunsen burner, which everyone still uses, and we use it in our chemistry class. The last interesting topic along with the Bunsen burner is the commentary about rubber.
“The Silly Side of Flubber” Schwartz’s explains what a useless but necessary object rubber is to people. When the U.S. stopped getting imports from Japan of rubber they weren’t able to make a bunch of things. Rubber not only helped make cars and other things back home but it helped make ear plugs and things like that for the soldiers. Then one day, Paul Hodgson and Ruth Fallgatter, created flubber. From this object they earned themselves six million dollars. This simple, worthless object made these two men millionaires. All it took was a simple stupid idea to make people millionaires.
The Genie in the Bottle was a very interesting book. It took sixty-seven things that people would never think of and brought them to peoples eyes. Who would have ever known that some date rape drugs could be so harmful or that the Bunsen burner didn’t actually start of making fire. Schwartz’s book is a very good book and brought five things to my attention that I would have never known and I found them very intriguing.
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