Chemistry Lessons

A Blogpost by Adam Ming on substack

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.

---