Chemistry Was Fun: Jeff P. Gorski ’69, PhD’75
Reminiscing about 1965 and my freshman year at Wisconsin often brings me back to a part-time job where I assisted Odell Taliaferro, the Chemistry Department’s lab demonstrator, prepare demonstrations for the introductory chemistry 103 and 104 classes. These classes were taught by renowned lecturer C. Harvey Sorum. What fun I had putting together liquid clock reactions which instantaneously changed colors two or three times. ([Interestingly, as a kid, I had put on simple shows in my basement for neighborhood friends using experiments from my three chemistry sets.) The best was Sorum’s Christmas lecture which was filled with spectacular examples of inorganic chemistry and thermochemistry in action such as silvering large glass balls and tying a red ribbon around the neck to make giant ornaments, depositing copper crystals onto a reindeer cutout using electric current in a copper sulfate solution, and shooting a cork stopper from the back of the hall when a mixture of hydrogen and chlorine gas was ignited by exposure to light from burning magnesium. This repertoire of demonstrations later formed the impetus for Professor Bassam Z. Shakhashiri, who expanded this entertaining educational approach to teaching through his now-famous chemistry presentations.
