On Fri, 5 Dec 2003, Matthew Hunter wrote: > Actually, tradition is useful in precisely those situations where > we do not understand its genesis or the context in which it > originated. There's a wonderful chapter about chromium in Primo Levi's book The Periodic Table. Levi had just gotten out of Auschwitz and went to work as a chemist at a paint factory. Some of the paint produced during the war was turning into a liverish solid. After some detective work Levi discovered that a test of an essential ingredient was being done with 23 drops of something - at some point in the distant past it had been 2 or 3 drops, but the instructions got miscopied. The test was worthless, the ingredient in question was of unacceptable quality due to the post-war chaos. Levi figured out that adding ammonium chloride would fix the ruined ingredient. Twenty years later he happened to be at a dinner where people were telling chemistry stories. A man mentioned that he had recently worked at a paint factory where they were using, ridiculously, ammonium chloride in their anti-rust paint, when in fact it encouraged rust. When he pointed out that the salt was less than useless, he was told that the formula was sacrosanct.