Trichloroethane

There was two comments on my second-to-last post regarding the name of my blog.

Since I guess it might be of general interest I'm just going to post the explanation here.

The name as well as the original subtitle for my blog comes from the novel Choke, written by Chuck Palahniuk.

In Choke, the mother of the main character thinks humanity is burdened by excess knowledge:

"Ever since the story of Adam and Eve in the Bible, humanity has been a little too smart for its own good, the Mommy said. Ever since eating that apple. Her goal was to find, if not a cure, then at least a treatment that would give people back their innocence."

One of the chemicals she experiments with is trichloroethane:

"Trichloroethane," the Mommy said and held the tube for him to see. "All my extensive testing has shown this to be the best treatment for a dangerous excess of human knowledge."

I haven't actually heard of trichloroethane being widely used for anything but there's a similar chemical call trichloroethylene or -ethene (IUPAC nomenclature) which was widely used as a solvent, degreaser, dry cleaning agent etc. Although like Sara said, it's not really widely in use anymore because of the toxicity.