I don’t have a lot to say about this day. I loved chemistry in high school; I met one of my best friends in that class and we both laugh-choked when our teacher singed his eyebrows while lambasting a student that their Bunsen burner was not defective, “here I’ll show you.”(He was not hurt. I’m not even sure he was embarrassed.)

She went on to do science-y things, working in labs and ultimately becoming a nurse.

I’m also amused by how many chemistry dad jokes revolve around sodium (Na) but only Monty Python gives due credit to nickel (Ni). Fly your nerd flag: What’s your favorite elemental joke?

My greatest chemistry success was probably to expose my kid to this song, making him the fourth generation in my family to love it and fail to memorize it. This song pops up in odd places every now and then—it featured in an episode of the Big Bang Theory (go figure), some nerdy kids sing it on a bus in an episode of the Gilmore Girls, and Daniel Radcliffe sang it on the Graham Norton show. If you like it, I recommend you check out Tom Lehrer’s other stuff. You might learn a lot, and not just about chemistry or math.