-: You can know all the basics.
You can know classic chemical reactions,
you can know all of them in the book
but if you cannot make connections.
So if you're working on one project
and you're starting to see patterns that you
or if you don't see the patterns that happened previously
and you're just beating your head against a wall,
trying to reinvent the wheel with
every single thing that you do, every project you work on.
I would say that's probably the defining line
between a good chemist and a great chemist.
A great chemist might not know every single,
every single chemical reaction that could ever happen
or even the classics.
I know I sure don't.
I probably learned them all here at UT,
did I remember them?
Some of them, yes, not all of them.
But can you make that connection?
Can you see the patterns?
Can you, can you pull from previous experiences?
That's really the key there.