Today I’m thinking about potassium, because sometimes I hear about foods that are “high in potassium”. And the word, the word “potassium” takes me back to school, back to a chemistry lesson.
Our teacher dropped a little chunk of the stuff into a beaker of water and she stood back a little. I remember it like it was yesterday, and in fact, had I seen it yesterday the same thing would have happened. It would have rushed around the water’s surface, fizzing, burning pinkish purple as it went. Potassium burns in water but we eat it. Science explains these things, explains an “exothermic reaction”, describes how the potassium and water combine and create potassium hydroxide and the hydrogen created ignites in the heat of the energy released. Or something (feel free in the comments, science people, to elucidate the burnt remains of my recollections!).
I normally write about music here, because that’s my thing. Science isn’t my thing, I can’t really visualise what is happening in science. I couldn’t see atoms, the shape of them, the “mostly space” quality of them, and molecules, shown in pictures, in equations. I couldn’t see them. Surely music is different? In music we are expressing ourselves, it’s subjective, what works for one person won’t hold up for another. Isn’t that right? The science of music is cold, analytical…the emotion is what drives us?
I couldn’t imagine what the reaction of potassium and water might look like. Water does not burn, water is for putting out fires. A B natural does not, similarly, fit with a C7 chord, it buzzes, creates disturbance that is not wanted. And yet Mike Gibbs, or Stravinsky, or Bill Frisell, Cecil Taylor, Monk – they make it work. They set fire to water. It is, in these cases, wanted, needed.
So I wasn’t very good at science, and despite a brief flirtation with “A” level physics, I consider myself completely illiterate in the field. But what I remember about chemistry, in fact all I remember, is that piece of potassium in that water, shocking in its violence, hitting me like Beethoven did. Be careful, it seemed to be saying, there’s heat and fire where you least expect it.
Brother Face 