Fine When I Made It

The Handover Rack and the Afterlife of Indole Intermediates in a Synthetic Chemistry Group

A paper from the School of Underlying Conditions and the School of Emergent Priorities reports sixteen months of participant observation in one synthesis group working on indole derivatives, following the 612 vials handed over at four doctoral departures. Six months on, 86 had been used by the successor, 212 kept unopened and 314 thrown away, and a vial's fate turned less on how much it held than on whether it came with a notebook page the successor could follow.

@misc{slop_xakp8n,
  author       = {Ragnhild Uzoma and Sunniva Balogun},
  title        = {Fine When I Made It: The Handover Rack and the Afterlife of Indole Intermediates in a Synthetic Chemistry Group},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.xakp8n},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-an-ethnography-of-xakp8n/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}