I don't watch Breaking Bad, but it's obviously the most prominent example of synthetic chemistry on television right now. But I do, however, read Alyssa Rosenberg, who I find to be one of the more insightful pop culture critics around. I'm terribly amused at the conversation between two characters about traveling to Mexico to, uh, supervise a pilot run of what I assume to be a CNS-active amine:
“What if I go to the jungle or whatever? And say they got actual chemists, like cartel chemists, asking me chemistry stuff that I don’t know how to answer because I’m not you?” Jesse asks, breathless, for a moment the same kid who declared “Yay Mr. White! Yay science!” all those episodes ago, all those months before the fall. “And what if all the equipment is in Mexican instead of English? You know, I don’t know, I don’t know. If I mess this up, I am dead. All of us. Mr. White. Look, I need your help. Maybe you could coach me or something. Or you can give me some notes. Mr. White?”Make sure you have that technology transfer documentation at hand...
Only TV can add that kind of drama to obtaining a gas chromatography trace. Any chemist who has used a GC will find it hilarious.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure the guys in Breaking Bad don't do any QC on their product. If it's crystalline, they assume it's good.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, they could use an actual organic chemist as a consultant on that show. I think they consult with someone in the DEA for some details, but some of the fundamental chemistry discussions make me wince.
There is a professor at Oklahoma State that consults with them and gave an interesting talk in the Hollywood/Chemistry symposium at the Denver ACS meeting. She said a lot of them do try to get it right, such as use correct blackboard figures and stoichiometry calculations, but often scientific reality will get trumped by narrative excitement (the speed at which things happen, for instance). One thing she also said was that the show will try to not be TOO scientifically accurate so as not to encourage home cooks, and will for instance purposefully change elements in synthetic methods to obstruct someone trying to use it.
ReplyDeleteHey, Melanie Sanford won a MacArthur fellowship!
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