"It was a game, a very interesting game one could play. Whenever one solved one of the little problems, one could write a paper about it. It was very easy for any second-rate physicist to do first-rate work. There has not been such a glorious time since. It is very difficult now for a first-rate physicist to do second-rate work."

-Paul Dirac

Impacts

My work has focused on nitrophenols, a set of molecules which exhibit a natural yellow color. This yellow is in part what constitutes the brown smoke one observes in a wildfire. These nitrophenols are produced in a fire, they begin to break down due to various chemical reactions. The type of reactions I have focused on involve sunlight coming in and potentially bleaching these molecules, the same sort of fade that happens when something is left outside in the sun for too long.