Chemistry.com
| Thursday 04 Feb 2010 |
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What would you expect to find if you pointed your Web browser to www.chemistry.com? The Chemical Heritage Foundation, perhaps. The American Chemical Society would be another good guess. Or you might anticipate a random site devoted to the wonders and mysteries of chemical science.
Go ahead, give it a try (simply click the link above). I’ll wait….
Were you surprised to find yourself at a dating site?
My own reaction is thoroughly schizophrenic. On the one hand, romance is often spoken of as having the “right chemistry,” and close relationships are similarly described as resulting from “good chemistry.”
But I also think the appropriation of chemistry for this purpose is yet another indication of the crude commercialization of everything that has lasting or enduring value.
If you find yourself distressed, disappointed, angry, or harboring any other emotion about chemistry.com, you might investigate the history of www.whitehouse.com. Originally, an “adult” entertainment site, it was such an egregious perversion of Web addresses that somebody bought the domain name and converted it to a site about college financial aid.
Maybe we should try to reclaim chemistry, too.