Sili gets the last laugh

Okay, I know I said the chemistry poetry book was done. But now that we've gotten the proofs and realize that some little things will need to be changed, I am considering replacing one of the illustrations. This is just a rough sketch I did today to get some ideas down. The poem, written of course by Mala Radhakrishnan, is about an atom of Silicon named Sili, who is teased relentlessly in school because, being neither metal nor non-metal, he was having trouble fitting in.


Though like a metal (it was quite shiny),

Its conductivity was tiny.

Its band gap was too far from little,

And unlike metals, ’twas rather brittle.


It clutched electrons way too tightly,

So metals would tease it daily and nightly.

Yet nons would also jeer and nettle,

“You dress and look just like a metal!”

What pain ’cause it did not conform,

No box for it to check on forms.

Few others could know the lonely void

That it lived as a “metalloid.”


Of course, he eventually proves to be very useful indeed, and everyone loves him...


And nowadays, sili’s still lionized.

Its band gap equals a perfect size

To dope with nearby brothers and sisters

And make computers from transistors.


As if its utility has not yet impressed us,

It’s also in quartz and in glass and asbestos.

And silicon’s used in chemical plants

For lubricants and breast implants.


Sili, its fourteen electrons so strong,

Proved all of its skeptical peers to be wrong

When it managed to move all the way out to Cali

And founded its very own aptly-named valley.


With this illustration I tried to incorporate as many silicon-containing materials as I could, including a computer, a quartz watch, solar panels, a car, glass, bluetooth device, and some, shall we say, augmentation. (Obviously I'm talking about Sili's calves.)