Chemistry
Chemistry
[A large capital letter "H", with faint gray circles drawn on the ends of each of the four legs.] Hydrogen can form four bonds. It readily bonds with itself, and often exists as a crystal. [A lattice of several H's, all "bonded" together at the ends of their legs in a crisscross, meshlike pattern, labeled:] Crystalline hydrogen
[A large capital letter "C", with faint gray circles drawn on both ends of the arc.] Carbon can only form two bonds. It readily bonds with hydrogen to form C 2 H (mydrane) or itself. [Image of a C and an inverted C, linked at their endpoints, labeled:] C 2 [Image of two C's linked with an H between them, labeled:] C 2 H
[A large capital letter "O".] Oxygen is inert, forming no bonds... [Image of several lone O's, none connected to anything, labeled:] Monatomic oxygen gas.
[Caption at bottom:] Typographic chemistry

This comic is a classic example of taking an absurd premise, and applying correct science to it, to see how different the conclusion is to the real world.
The idea of Typographic Chemistry presented in this comic is a play on  Douglas Hofstadter ’s Typographical Number Theory and Typographical Genetics , which are featured in Gödel, Escher, Bach . While Hofstadter's typographical systems are designed to model aspects of real genetics and number theory, Randall abuses this notion by inventing a typographical system which bears no resemblance to real chemistry.
Chemical bonding is a well-known subject which explains the formation of molecules from atoms . This comic refers to three chemical elements : carbon (C), hydrogen (H), and oxygen (O). In real chemistry, the formation of bonds between atoms depends on the number of valence electrons each atom has, and how accessible those electrons are for bonding. The comic jokingly replaces valence electron theory with a theory that the number of bonds an atom can form depends on the number of leaf vertices possessed by the chemical symbol's letter. A leaf vertex is a vertex having only one edge connecting to one other vertex. "H" for example, the chemical symbol of hydrogen, has 4 leaf vertices. This is shown in the comic by the four half-circles placed at each leaf vertex of the "H". Thus, in the comic's theory, elemental hydrogen can form 4 bonds. Oxygen, however, having the chemical symbol "O", has no leaf vertices, and according to the comic's theory should not bond to anything, and is therefore inert.
Of course, the theory is completely inconsistent with observed chemistry. While the comic declares oxygen is inert and forms no bonds, this is not really the case: the two unpaired valence electrons in a lone oxygen atom make oxygen reactive, and oxygen atoms readily form molecules. Diatomic oxygen, O 2 , makes up about 20.9% of Earth's atmosphere, and is essential for aerobic life, including human life. Similarly, a water molecule consists of an oxygen atom tightly bonded to two hydrogen atoms.
By observing real chemical compounds, chemists have deduced that hydrogen atoms really have 1 valence electron, carbon 4 and oxygen 6, allowing hydrogen to have up to 1 bond, carbon up to 4, and oxygen up to 2. Thus carbon can have up to four bonds, and really is often found in crystalline form in nature (diamonds and coal are allotropes of carbon); oxygen can have up to 2 bonds, and can combine with carbon to form CO 2 (instead of C 2 H in the comic). Randall thus gives to "typographic" hydrogen qualities that belong in real-life to carbon, since "typographic" hydrogen can have 4 bonds. Similarly, "typographic" carbon is ascribed properties belonging to real-life oxygen. "Typographic" oxygen takes on the properties of the real-life noble gases (like helium, neon, and argon), which form no bonds and are inert.
While the ethynyl radical , which has the structure ∙C≡C–H, does have the formula C 2 H, there is no molecule with the C–H–C structure in nature. The word "mydrane" is a whimsical neologism for this fictional substance: the "hydr-" prefix for hydrogen is changed to "mydr-" (a prefix which does not exist) and combined to the "-ane" suffix for alkanes (simple hydrocarbon molecules). Perhaps Randall named this compound "mydrane" to declare ownership of it ("my-" as in "mine"). Another reasonable assumption is that the word is a portmanteau of methyl (Me- is the prefix for 1 carbon chains attached to a functional group) and hydrogen with the -ane suffix for alkanes; the nomenclature stems from (di-)m(ethyl) (h)ydr(ogen) -ane, which would form mydrane. Technically, the nomenclature would be "dimethyl" since there are two "methyl" groups attached to the functional group (i.e. hydrogen in this case). It would, however, not be uncommon to drop a di- from a compound name if it's redundant (only one possible compound, e.g. dimethyl ether which sometimes is referred to as methyl ether) or makes a clumsy name ("dimydrane" could make it sound as if there are two mydrane groups).
The title text points out that the theory as presented only applies to sans-serif text. A serif is a small line across the end of each stroke. " H ", for instance, has four serifs, each with two leaf vertices. Thus hydrogen in a serif font would be able to form 8 bonds making it, according to the comic's theory, "more reactive".
[A large capital letter "H", with faint gray circles drawn on the ends of each of the four legs.] Hydrogen can form four bonds. It readily bonds with itself, and often exists as a crystal. [A lattice of several H's, all "bonded" together at the ends of their legs in a crisscross, meshlike pattern, labeled:] Crystalline hydrogen
[A large capital letter "C", with faint gray circles drawn on both ends of the arc.] Carbon can only form two bonds. It readily bonds with hydrogen to form C 2 H (mydrane) or itself. [Image of a C and an inverted C, linked at their endpoints, labeled:] C 2 [Image of two C's linked with an H between them, labeled:] C 2 H
[A large capital letter "O".] Oxygen is inert, forming no bonds... [Image of several lone O's, none connected to anything, labeled:] Monatomic oxygen gas.
[Caption at bottom:] Typographic chemistry
