The “The Story of the Contented Molecule” advertisement as found in a 1941 issue if Life. [1]
In famous publications, “The Story of the Contented Molecule” is a 1941 children’s story Empedocles-style anecdotal advertisement, promoted by Quaker State Motor Oil, of how people in crowds are like molecules in a oil and how there are satisfied and unsatisfied molecules and why certain oils are better than others, based on their respective stabilities and the rate at which they will break down. [1]
Human chemistry In the modern 21st century human chemistry view, it is known that humans are molecules, i.e. human molecules, and that humans due tend to separate into separate boundaried groups just as due oil and water, a subject discussed in integration and segregation thermodynamics and racial thermodynamics. [2] Beyond this, a number of things can be learned from this so-called "children's story". Some of these are listed below as points of discussion.
Birth of molecules The articles states that dissatisfied molecules are ones "born" without all its atoms. The first correction to this statement is that molecules are not born, but rather synthesized.
The second underlying correction to this anthropomorphic label is that not only are molecules not born, but in addition molecules do not "die" and are not "alive" or "living", but rather can only be defined using standard chemistry terms such as animated, reactive, inert, etc; an issue that is slowly being addressed in the 2009 defunct theory of life. [5]
Dissatisfied molecules The definition of dissatisfied molecules as one that lack certain atoms seems to hold up, as modeled on Abegg's rule and the octet rule, being that atoms (or atoms of molecules) tend to seek bonds that satisfy an outer shell valence electron configuration of eight electrons. [3]
The desire to be different It is said that the dissatisfied molecule is always trying to become something different because he knows he isn't right in some way. This form the most part is correct, similar to above, in that when atoms (or atoms of molecules) are dropped into a reactive system they will migrate, move, and react in the direction that will most satisfy their affinities, which for simple rows two and three elements equates to the "desire" of atoms to seek bonds that will enable them to form a noble gas valence electron configuration. This same desire-behavior is said to explain the underlying motives of human behaviors, as loosely outlined in the 2009 article “Neuro Octet Trajectory Theory” by American chemical engineer Libb Thims. [4]
Good, bad, and evil molecules The story alludes to the premise that there are "good oils" and "bad oils" or rather good and bad molecules, which extrapolates to the idea that there are so-called "evil" molecules; likewise "some oils [or molecules] are better than other", supposedly based on the logic that molecules who break down faster or less stable in the long run are worse or bad, comparatively speaking.
Moreover, the good-bad dichotomy runs against the grain of the Utopian motto that all people are created equal, such as was famously held to be "self-evident" according to Thomas Jefferson in his drafting of the Constitution of the United States. [6] Here we see, conversely, that it is not so easily self-evident at the chemical level.
The article alludes to the idea that certain reactions, such as the autoxidation chemical reaction between oil and oxygen, to make varnish is “evil”, particularly when it produces an undesired affect and gums up the piston.
What harm can one little molecule do? The story states that one dissatisfied molecule can get into "trouble", such as by finding a drop of water or a loose atom of carbon, and then, before long, if there are billions like him have a situation covered in sludge.
Here we may offer the famous example of the one little "human molecule" Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip, a dissatisfied student, who in 1914, by shooting Archduke Franz Ferdinand, according to social physicist Marc Buchanan, singlehandedly started a global chain reaction that launched WWI leaving ten million dead five years later. [7]
Happy molecules The article alludes to the idea that there are ways to define the state of a molecule as being in a happy state, such as riding up and down on a piston, similar to a child riding up and down on a teeter-totter. Two ways in which thinkers have gone about quantifying and modeling happiness of human molecules is by (b) bond count, i.e. wherein bond count has been found to be proportional to one's happiness level, and (b) the flow state (a state of productive work output), such as is quantified in Jungian-style psychological entropy Csíkszentmihályi flow theory.
Overcoming troubles It is said that the contented molecules have to do their best to overcome the troubles produced by the uncontented molecules. There may be some truth in this statement, explained by Fritz Lipmann's 1941 free energy coupling theory as applied to social interactions, on the logic that strongly energy releasing human chemical reactions reactions (ΔG << 0) work to drive weakly-going reactions (ΔG ≈ 0) as well as reactions that would never go on their own (ΔG > 0), such as has been outlined in global inter-country economic terms by Robert Kenoun (Theory of History and Social Change), in local economic terms by Octavian Ksenzhek (Money: Virtual Energy, 2007), and in interpersonal and familial human molecular relationship terms by Libb Thims (Human Chemistry, 2007).
Envy and malice The parable of the story is that bad molecules (or dissatisfied molecules) get what they have coming to them, so to speak, and that no good can come out of their situation. This seems to be saying that good will always prevail in the end, or something to this effect (or something along the lines of karma existing in chemical systems).
The story states that the bad molecules become torn by envy and malice, whereby resultantly one bad molecule multiplies into gangs of bad molecules, each precipitate or copy, however, being half as good as the original bad template molecule.
These last two contentions are difficult to merit out in terms of correctness or not?