Today, we spent over 4 hours with Candidate (Assistant Professor with a Ph.D.) Valery Shtyrlin. That is, I spent the time, and the students watched me acting like a kid in a candy store. Valery showed me the scanned electronic version of the notes that Markovnikov took of Butlerov's lectures during the 1859-1860 academic year. This is a critical time period in the development of organic chemistry because it was during this time that Butlerov was developing his version of Structural Theory. Within about 4 years, Butlerov had completed his master work, the Vvedenie (Introduction; it is seldom referred to by its full title), which is based entirely on his theory. The lecture notes pre-date much of the really revolutionary ideas in the Vvedenie, but they do show Butlerov's struggles with theory as it existed at the time, and they reveal the logical mind that would make Structural Theory an indispensable part of every organic chemist's arsenal.
I have reproduced a few pages from this work below:
I know you can't read this, but there is something interesting about it. First, it is not Markovnikov's handwriting (which is absolutely atrocious), but is the work of a professional scribe or copywriter. But, if you look at the slope of the writing, there are two other sets of handwriting. The scribe writes with a right-hand slant to the letters (rather like we were taught when I was a young lad). The chemical terms, on the other hand, are written in two different hands, and the scribe has left spaces to be filled by the other writers. These spaces occur whenever a technical term is involved.
The second writer appears to provide most of the technical terms, and writes with a strictly vertical (unslanted) hand. On occasion, however, there appears to be a third writer, who writes with a strongly left-handeded slope. I think that this writer may have become involved when writer number 2 could not read Markovnikov's writing, or when Markovnikov used a term with which neither of the two previous writers knew. This is something that I have not seen before, and adds a whole new dimension to this study.
With Dr. Shtyrlin, we went to lunch at a lunchroom of the Ministry of Education (I think—I'll check again tomorrow). We went after I had run out of "ooh"s and "aah"s (just kidding—not really, and certainly not yet!). I had noodles, green beans, goulash and fruit juice for 170 roubles ($2.95). Food really is inexpensive here, and the quality is good. I am currently satisfying my addiction to Russian black bread with "Borodinskii bread with cumin." I am not tasting the cumin, but neither does the bread have aa strong a rye flavor as I was expecting—maybe the two flavors compete and moderate each other.
While we were in Valery's office, he showed me the second printing of my book. Yes, Virginia, there is a second printing! Obviously, I will be bringing back more copies for folks who have asked, but to whom I have not been able to send copies.
Things here are going very well, but today, finally, we got rained on. But...even the showers only last a few minutes, even though they do dump a huge amount of water ion that shore time.
The back is telling me to lie down, so I will do so.
More later!
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