EvilGremlin likes science. a few weeks ago, he was asking about how acids work. which led to acid-base chemistry. which led to a discussion of valence and electron shells. which led to a discussion of chemical binding. which led to crafting both ball-and-stick and space-filling molecular models. and then there were some big ol’ loopy sidetracks: the periodic table, the latin roots of most of the elements, the impractical nature of the transuranium elements, and what the hell the point of a neutron is. thank god it didn’t occur to him to ask about sub-atomic particles. i’m going to have to read up on that shit again before i can give him any coherent explanations.
anyway, all of this led to him reading PRM’s old biochemistry textbook. no shit. i only gave it to him because i couldn’t find my high school or college chem textbooks, and both PRM and i had gotten rid of our college organic chem texts. so… he read the first couple of chapters in a bajillion page pre-med biochem textbook. and understood it. and enjoyed it. and took notes on it. check this out, with the relative sizes and the binding sites marked:
…and then he reminds you that, yeah, he’s smart, but he’s definitely still just 9 years old:
