loss of months of labor. The reason the chemist did not do anything
further with the gummy stuff that stuck up his test tube was because he
did not know what to do with it. It could not be dissolved, it could not
be crystallized, it could not be distilled, therefore it could not be
purified, analyzed and identified.

What had happened was in most cases this. The molecule of the compound
that the chemist was trying to make had combined with others of its kind
to form a molecule too big to be managed by such means. Financiers call
the process a "merger." Chemists call it "polymerization." The resin was
a molecular trust, indissoluble, uncontrollable and contaminating
everything it touched.

But chemists--like governments--have learned wisdom in recent years.
They have not yet discovered in all cases how to undo the process of
polymerization, or, if you prefer the financial phrase, how to
unscramble the eggs. But they have found that these molecular mergers
are very useful things in their way. For instance there is a liquid
known as isoprene (C_{5}H_{8}). This on heating or standing turns into a
gum, that is nothing less than rubber, which is some multiple of
C_{5}H_{8}.

For another instance there is formaldehyde, an acrid smelling gas, used
as a disinfectant. This has the simplest possible formula for a
carbohydrate, CH_{2}O. But in the leaf of a plant this molecule
multiplies itself by six and turns into a sweet solid glucose
(C_{6}H_{12}O_{6}), or with the loss of water into starch
(C_{6}H_{10}O_{5}) or cellulose (C_{6}H_{10}O_{5}).

But formaldehyde is so insatiate that it not only combines with itself