At the Billy the Kid Outlaw Film Festival in Hico, Texas, there is either an exhibit or a sponsor titled "The Art of Polymathy Freelance Photography by 'Cash.'"
I was unable to figure out precisely what that was, but it seems interesting.
I wonder what the art of polymathy actually is.
Just a little more of Votoček's chemistry work.
Votoček was also a leader in creating a nomenclature for the carbohydrates, especially for the carbohydrates that he had synthesized. He was a member for many years of the organic chemistry nomenclature board of the international chemistry standards board (the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). Votoček also wrote textbooks on both organic and inorganic chemistry and a laboratory manual titled Instructions for Laboratory Work in Organic Chemistry. He became a formidable linguist as an adult, learning Polish, Serbo-Croatian, French, Italian, Spanish, German, and English, all of which he spoke excellently. He even lectured in French at chemical society meetings in France.
Votoček then married his language and scientific skills, compiling at least seven scientific and musical dictionaries, including a Shorter German–Czech and French-Czech Chemico-Technical Dictionary, a Czech–French Terminological and Phraseological Dictionary for Chemistry, Physics and Related Sciences, a Polish–Czech Chemical Dictionary with Partial Regard to Mathematics, Physics, Geometry and Mineralogy, a Czech-German-French-English-Latin Chemical Dictionary, and a Czech–German–French–English–Italian–Latin Chemical Dictionary, a Czech–French Conversation and Phraseology, and a Musical Dictionary of Foreign Expressions and Phrases.
And why is he polymathic? His musical accomplishments. He was interested in music as a young child and played several instruments, concentrating on the double bass. He was good enough to play in the Prague Orchestral Association, a leading amateur orchestra.
But it is Votoček’s music composition for which he is musically most known today. As a young chemistry professor, he managed to convince the noted Czech conductor and composer František Spilka to tutor him in music composition. He stayed with Spilka for six years, studying music while simultaneously teaching chemistry, before his academic duties called him away from music back to the chemistry lab full time.
But his music hiatus was to be almost twenty-five years. It was not until Votoček reached his early 60’s, toward the end of his academic career, that he returned to music. But what a return it was! In the last fifteen or so years of his life, Votoček wrote almost sixty classical music pieces, mostly chamber music and pieces for piano, but also five orchestral works. Nor did Votoček write just for himself; the majority of his works were played either in public or on Czech radio.
So, polymath or not? Why not? He was a chemist and a classical composer, not to mention a dictionary writer. If we remember my definition of a polymath as one who is proficient in or who has made significant accomplishments in at least two widely disparate fields or three less disparate fields, why not Votoček? Chemist and music composition are pretty disparate.That 's good enough for me.
Votoček was a prolific researcher and writer, publishing over 300 scholarly papers. He was a member of the Royal Czech Society of Sciences and an honorary member of numerous other European chemical societies. His main research interest was the study of sugars and carbohydrates (and most importantly the methylpentoses), but he was also known for the study of synthetic dyes (especially the triphenylmethanes) and the analysis of natural products. He was known for synthesizing different kinds of saccharides, especially the derivatives of rhamnose, a naturally occurring sugar that can be extracted from, among other plants, poison sumac.
Let's stop right here. What is a methylpentose? Apparently it's a methyl derivative of a pentose. Well, that's not very helpful. What's a methyl? It's an alkyl derived from methane (CH4). Methane is easy, but what's an alkyl? An alkyl is an alkane missing one hydrogen atom. What's an alkane? It's an acyclic (a compound with a linear structure) saturated (less reactive) hydrocarbon (organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon).
But we never got around to figuring out what a pentose is. That's easy. A pentose is a monosaccharide with five carbon atoms. Aha, now we’re getting somewhere. Votoček studied sugars. A monosaccharide sounds like a sugar (Saccharin anyone), and in fact is the simplest sugar molecule. It includes sugars like glucose and fructose. And back to a methyl derivative. That means that it contains a molecular structural unit from the methyl group (which consists of three hydrogen atoms bonded to a carbon atom, which is linked to the rest of the molecule) that is chemically derived from a pentose.
And with that, we finish our organic chemistry lesson for the day.
Votoček attended business school after high school with the intention of taking over his father’s wholesale paper business, but realized that chemistry rather than accounting and management was his true love. So he transferred to the School of Chemistry at the Czech Technical University in Prague, where he graduated in 1893 with a concentration in organic chemistry.
But because Votoček was most interested in hands on laboratory research and the Czech Technical University did not have a sufficient organic chemistry laboratory, he went off to France and Germany for two years of post-graduate work. He returned to the Czech Technical University in 1895, and spent his entire academic career there as a professor’s assistant, lecturer (Docent), Assistant Professor, and Professor of Organic Chemistry.
In early 1939, at age 66, the administration forced him to retire, but he was not ready to retire from his laboratory, so he enrolled as a student!
Unfortunately, World War II intervened; Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, and, in November 1939, the German administration closed all Czech universities for the duration of the war. That really ended Votoček’s formal academic career.
Let's start looking at another polymath. What about Emil Votoček?
Votoček was an organic chemist and chemistry professor who, in his later years, fulfilled his dream of composing music so well that he received his own listing not only in a Czech biographical dictionary of composers and musicians, but also in the leading biographical dictionary of music for the English speaking world, Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians.
It's been a while, so I forget precisely how I learned about him, but I do have this article in my files with the amazing title of The Lesser Known Chemist-Composers, Past And Present. And here is a link to that article.
It turns out that there are a fair number of reasonably well-known chemist-composers. Probably the leading chemist-composer is the Russian Alexander Borodin, who also appears on my list of polymaths. I'll get to him some day. But you've also probably heard of Edward Elgar.
I wonder if there are also well-known biologist-composers. Or maybe physicist-composers. Sounds like a promising avenue for further research.
More tomorrow.
In the first go-around, I laid out my definition of the term polymathy and also talked about a few polymaths (or at least people that I considered to be polymaths).
In this go-around, I'll concentrate on polymaths throughout the years. That should keep me going for quite a while as I have a list with a couple of hundred polymaths (or alleged polymaths) on it from ancient Greek times to the present day.
Tomorrow we'll get started.
I did read the book and found it pretty interesting. But it turns out that I'm not necessarily a great book reviewer. I read a book and then I'm generally more interested in hearing what other people said about the book then telling people what I think about a book.
So, if you're interested in polymaths and polymathy, read the book.
I had previously posted a couple of reviews if you're still on the fence about it.
