Chapter III: Selected Elements

Excerpt from "Amalgam in the Middle" by Mala Radhakrishnan

...

The former outcast with hopes that were bust
Was soon the key in creating Earth’s crust.
The pariah that had been given “the hand”
Was now in every grain of sand.

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.

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