When waiting for the elevator to take up to Lerner 510, where open meetings occur every Sunday at 9 PM ;), I mindlessly stared at the wall. While doing so, the Lerner logo caught my eye. The first thing I thought when seeing that modern and simplistic logo was that it looks like octane.

Hear me out. There are seven connecting lines with six corners. At each corner and end, there would be a carbon in a Lewis structure. Therefore, there are eight carbons. Each carbon, or Lerner floor, is connected by a single line, the ramp. These single lines in a Lewis structure would be a single bonds. Therefore, Lerner is octane: eight carbons connected by single bonds.

I theorize that the logo resembling octane is no coincidence. Octane has a boiling point of about 125.62°C, about 25° higher than that of water. The human body is about 60% water according to the USGS. The water within you realizes that Lerner, or octane, is less likely to vaporize when the heat of midterms is on. Therefore, Lerner uses its own chemistry to make you love its groundedness. Octane also has a lower density than water. This can be seen by its relatively low foot traffic in relation to its size. Think about the Diana Center: there are people everywhere, going to get food or coffee, heading to class, or sitting in a comfortable chair. But in Lerner, its lack of convenient seating makes it much less dense with people than other buildings. Additionally, Lerner’s latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates are (40.806990,-73.964310). The longitudinal number of 73 comes up TWICE in its physical properties of an enthalpy of fusion of 20.73 kJ/mol and a melting point of -56.73°C. This connection may not be completely at first glance, but that’s exactly what the architects of Lerner Hall wanted.

All data of octane from the Handbook of Physics and Chemistry

Lerner is Octane photo via Bwogger who needs to sleep more