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Chemistry Lessons

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Chemistry Lessons

A Blogpost by Adam Ming on substack

Adam Ming
Aug 15, 2022
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Chemistry Lessons

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In high school, I flunked chemistry by half a point.

I tried to negotiate with my teacher, showing her areas where I might be awarded that additional half mark. For my efforts I make have lost half a mark under the extra scrutiny.


But a word I’ve never used bubbled up in my morning pages, so I looked it up on Wikipedia. The word was ‘Coalescence’.

Meaning - the process where two ‘miscible’ seem to pull together to form a larger phase domain.

I was thinking about ideas pulling together to form a larger idea. The word ‘miscible’ here is completely new to me. Miscible substances are substances that can resolve completely into each other. Oil and water are not miscible.


I think these chemistry words work so well to help describe the creative process.

It’s something like this:

We collect substances (ideas).

Some substances are miscible, and when they come into contact with other miscible ideas, they Coalesce into new Solutions


I doubt this will earn me half a point for my flunked chemistry exam. But it’s interesting to view ideas as miscible solutions, and this thing called ‘Creativity’ to be viewed as a natural process of ‘Coalescence’.


The implication being that for Creativity to happen, we simply need to bring ‘substance’ together. What can mix will form solutions, and what can’t will be separated.


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Chemistry Lessons

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Brianne Alcala
Writes Odyssey of the Body
Aug 18, 2022

Wow! What a splendid word, "miscible"! I'm going to now see examples of it everywhere. Friendship. Families. Stories. Chocolate Chip Cookies...

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