The Modern (Gas) Chromatographer’s Song

Full credit goes to my boss for coming up with this idea, however all the wording is my own. Don’t ask me to sing it.

 

The Modern (Gas) Chromatographer’s Song

I am the very model of a modern Chromatographer

I’ve information vegetable, animal, but volatile,

I know the phases of columns, and I quote them all historical

From injection port to detector, in order categorical;

I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,

I understand equations, both Gaussian and quadratical,

About temperature programming I’m teeming with a lot o’ news,

With many cheerful facts about the carrier gas you should use

 

I’m very good at integrating all of the peaks numerous;

I know the scientific names of organic chemiculuous:

In short, in matters vegetable, animal, but volatile

I am the very model of a modern Chromatographer

 

I know our mythic history, Van Deemter’s and Sir Kovats*;

I can do the hard extractions, I’ve a pretty taste for paradox,

I quote in journal papers the crimes of other’s poor analysis

I’m not afraid of making the injection aqueous

I can tell the chemical’s identity from just retention indices

I think that STD’s a standard and not venereal disease

Then I can hum the order of which compound will elute before

And whistle all the airs from that infernal LC I abhor

Then I can make a splitless injection that will no doubt perform

And tell you every detail of a split ratio that’s the norm

In short, in matters vegetable, animal, but volatile,

I am the very model of a modern Chromatographer

 

In fact, when I know what is meant by the absorptive travelling

Of the analytes whose identity I’m un-a-ravelling

When such affairs as how to decide where the baseline’s drawn at

And when I know precisely what is meant by the mobile phase’s effluent

When I have learnt what progress had been made in column ‘fficiency

When I know the film thickness, diameter, peak capacity

In short, when I’ve a smattering of chemical strategy—

You’ll say a better Chromatographer has never done GC

 

For my chromatographic knowledge, though I’m plucky and adventury,

Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;

But still, in matters vegetable, animal, but volatile,

I am the very model of a modern Chromatographer

 

*artistic license, Ervin Kovats was not knighted, as he was Hungarian.

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