Begin with Carbon

“How does he do it?”, a phrase often uttered by Sherlock’s audience both on and off the screen whenever he reaches a conclusion from the simplest bit of evidence.

So how does he do it? Holmes observes the small things. He begins with the minute details, then the bigger picture, not the other way around, (much like how we were instructed to write this piece).

Holmes always preaches about observing rather than looking. In the BBC rendition of Sherlock Holmes, the white phrases in tiny font show the viewer what he is looking at and why it’s significant. However, I think the Periodic Table of the Elements hanging on Holmes’ bedroom wall is the most concrete piece of evidence that observing the small elements of a problem is how “he does it.”

The individual elements make up everything on the face of the Earth and out into space. So to understand any of those large things such as a blade of grass, you must look back to it’s smallest components – the carbon atoms it’s made from.

Deanna
How Does He Do That
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The Periodic Table
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Observation1
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Observation 2
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Observation 3
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Observation 4
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Observation 5
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Observation 6
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Observation 7
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Observation 8

 

3 thoughts on “Begin with Carbon”

  1. I love the use of photos. How do they all fit together though? Could you expand on all his observations about that one person and give us a description/picture of who the man is? Could you do the same for Watson? Sherlock “observes” him while their in the room with Adler for the first time. Are there any parallels between Sherlock and J.B. Jeffries? We discussed a few in class, like the fact that they are both observers and that something separates them, be it emotional or physical reasons. What keeps Watson from making the same observations? Could it be that he’s mentally incapable of making the observations because of emotion? You have a great start of something and I love the details you grabbed. I didn’t get a chance to read all the details because the typography moved so quickly.

  2. I really like how you relate this idea of observing back to the smallest atom but to further your writing, I would ask so what? What does observing say about Sherlock’s character and the rest of society. Also, what is the effect of the written observations on the the scene in the BBC edition?

  3. I really like your idea but I would say that it could use some more examples from the show, especially from A Scandal in Belgravia. I also think it might be worthwhile to mention that Sherlock’s observations are not the only text on screen. For example, the cell phone, texts, and other technology play a major role throughout the series. Is that text significant as well?

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