Re: Not Satan, Just Chemistry
Many moons ago, the Royal Society of Chemistry commissioned this super-cool hi-tek visual Periodic table of elements. Each element has it’s own flashy computer-rendered picture representing the “essence” of each element. It sounds lame, but trust me, it’s groovy, especially if you like computer graphics. Or chemistry.
Anyhow, I was so impressed with it, I got my hands on the screensaver that interprets “Mercury (Hg)”. It’s very cool. It has the planet in the upper left hand of the screen, with globs of mercury breaking off and floating away from a big glob in the shape of the alchemical symbol of the element, floating over the periodic symbol (Hg), the number of the element (80), and its (admittedly rounded) molecular number (201). Geeky, but I like it.
Since I usually leave my laptop on for extended periods of time, a lot of people see my screensaver over the course of any given day. On day, during a project deep in the Bible Belt, I noticed an older, higher-ranking gentleman of the IT persuasion hovering around my cube. He turned to me and asked, “What is that symbol on your screensaver? I know that ‘Hg’ and all that stuff relates to the element Mercury.”
I looked at it. A circle, with two little lines coming out of the top of it, and two crossed lines coming out of the bottom of it. I shrugged. “It’s the old alchemical symbol for Mercury.” And I told him the story of the screensaver. He nodded and walked away.
Later that day, my manager came to me and said, “Could you turn off your screensaver for the time being?”
Cripes. I’m always getting in trouble for stuff I put on my laptop, like the manager who didn’t like my “Battle Angel Alita” wallpaper. But how could I go controversial with the Periodic table?
Apparently, the gentleman I was speaking to thought the symbol for Mercury could be interpreted as a satanic symbol. I said he had to be kidding. He said no.
I said, “That’s crazy! It’s not Satan, it’s chemistry!”
Nevertheless, I had to turn off my screensaver, and every once in a while, I’ll get an email with “It’s not Satan it’s chemistry” as the subject line from people who were on that project with me.
11:23:18 AM 
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