chemistry

Hamilton Morris

Hamilton Morris is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hamilton Morris rather than just read about it. In short: Hamilton Morris (born April 14, 1987) is an American journalist, filmmaker, chemist, and scientific researcher. He is most well-known for his television series Hamilton's Pharmacopeia, which aired from 2016 to 2021 and covered the chemistry, history, and cultural impact of various psychoactive drugs, particularly psychedelics.

Key takeaways

Hamilton Morris belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hamilton Morris to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hamilton Morris from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Hamilton Morris (born April 14, 1987) is an American journalist, filmmaker, chemist, and scientific researcher. He is most well-known for his television series Hamilton's Pharmacopeia, which aired from 2016 to 2021 and covered the chemistry, history, and cultural impact of various psychoactive drugs, particularly psychedelics. Morris also started a podcast called The Hamilton Morris Podcast in 2020. He is considered to be among the leading psychoactive drug journalists.

Early life and education Hamilton Morris was born in New York City, the son of Julia Sheehan, an art historian, and documentary filmmaker Errol Morris. He was raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Morris has described being a pyromaniac and interested in explosives and poisons as a child. In his teenage years, he appeared in television commercials, notably a 2002 advertisement for the first-generation iPod. Morris first explored psychoactive drugs by trying Salvia divinorum with his friends in high school around the age of 14, which left him in a state of "astonishment" and led him to learn how to chemically extract salvinorin A from the plant. However, it was not until Morris learned about Alexander Shulgin and novel research chemicals via a New York Times article a few years later in 2005 that he became more interested in and "obsessed" with psychoactive drugs. Relatedly, Morris discovered and began frequenting psychoactive drug websites such as Bluelight and Erowid. Morris attended the University of Chicago and The New School, where he studied anthropology and chemistry, including under the psychedelic drug expert Nicolas Langlitz. He earned a bachelor of science (BSc) degree in liberal arts from The New School, with his credential described as a "weird interdisciplinary science degree".

Career Morris began writing for Vice magazine as a college sophomore in 2008. He wrote a piece called "The Magic Jews" in 2008 documenting his experience taking LSD with a group of Hasidic Jews. Vice later hired him to write a monthly print column titled "Hamilton's Pharmacopeia" in 2009 that evolved into a series of articles and documentaries for VBS.tv focused on the science of psychoactive drugs. He was the science editor of Vice magazine in Manhattan by 2013. Morris has also written for Harper's Magazine and the The Brooklyn Rail. In his Hamilton's Pharmacopeia web series for Vice Media, which ran from 2009 to 2016 and spanned 11 episodes, Morris covered topics including Phyllomedusa bicolor (sapo or kambo), Haitian zombies and tetradotoxin, Alexander and Ann Shulgin, Krystle Cole and William Leonard Pickard, magic truffles, sensory deprivation tanks with Joe Rogan, zolpidem, efavirenz, cannabinoids, and Matt Bowden, among others. Morris subsequently did his Viceland show Hamilton's Pharmacopeia, which ran for three seasons and spanned 20 episodes, from 2016 until 2021. The show had episodes covering a variety of psychoactive drugs, including LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, bufotenin, DMT, 5-MeO-DMT, methamphetamine, methaqualone (Quaaludes), phencyclidine (PCP), ketamine, xenon, ibogaine, kratom, Salvia divinorum, Amanita muscaria, and hallucinogenic fish, among others. In one episode, Morris revealed Ken Nelson as the author of the 1984 Bufo Alvarius: the Psychedelic Toad of the Sonoran Desert pamphlet, which described how to use Incilius alvarius toad venom containing 5-MeO-DMT as a psychedelic drug. Other topics that Morris has covered or been interested in covering include the Temple of the True Inner Light, Lizard Labs, Ariadne, and 7-OH. Morris worked part-time as a chemist and pharmacologist in Jason Wallach's lab at the University of the Sciences's Philadelphia College of Pharmacy for more than a decade, from 2010 until at least late 2022. He has coauthored scientific papers on hallucinogens with Wallach, including a 2014 review on dissociatives and a 2023 study identifying serotonergic psychedelics as mediating hallucinogenic-like effects (i.e., the head-twitch response) via activation of the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor Gq signaling pathway. In September 2021, Morris left Vice to work as a full-time chemistry consultant at the biotechnology startup, Compass Pathways. Wallach's lab has a contract with Compass Pathways to develop novel psychedelic therapeutics. Although Morris left Vice, he said that he plans to continue to write, podcast, and make additional films in the future. In 2020, Morris started an ongoing podcast called The Hamilton Morris Podcast, interviewing people from the psychoactive drug world. Morris has personally developed and tested novel psychoactive drugs, such as the psychedelic lysergamide FP-LAD and the tellurium-containing psychedelic phenethylamine 2C-Te. In addition, he has explored and helped characterize obscure existing psychoactive drugs. As an example, Morris reported in the early 2020s, based on self-experimentation and following earlier work by Jonathan Ott, that bufotenin is indeed active as a psychedelic. According to Morris, the effects of this drug are like a cross between those of DMT and 5-MeO-DMT. Other novel psychoactive drug examples characterized by Morris include efavirenz, gaboxadol, and α,N,N-trimethyltryptamine (α,N,N-TMT). Yet another example is pharmahuasca in the form of the combination of DMT and the synthetic monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) moclobemide. Besides the preceding informal examples, Morris and Wallach have extensively studied the auditory psychedelic diisopropyltryptamine (DiPT). Morris has an ongoing conflict with the psychedelic media organization and self-described "watchdog group" Psymposia.

Reception Morris is considered to be among the world's leading psychoactive drug journalists. His work has been described as gonzo journalism analogous to that of Hunter S. Thompson. In addition, Morris has been said to be "doing for drugs what Anthony Bourdain did for food". He has also been credited with helping to change the way society thinks and talks about drugs, with efforts towards the end of drug prohibition.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hamilton Morris

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hamilton Morris claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hamilton Morris before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hamilton Morris ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hamilton Morris

In research: Hamilton Morris appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hamilton Morris in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hamilton Morris is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1987 births, 21st-century American Jews, 21st-century American male journalists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hamilton Morris outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Hamilton Morris in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hamilton Morris means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hamilton Morris out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hamilton Morris in simple terms?

Why does Hamilton Morris matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hamilton Morris?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hamilton Morris.