Life should be spent having fun, and it is fun to play with a big puzzle. This is a puzzle that can, I think, make you wiser for the playing. The chemistry needed here to thoroughly understand the reactions presented is taught in freshman General Chemistry in college or in a good upper level high school Chemistry course. Reviewing past learning can be good entertainment. But, our individual reviewing is also a metaphor. Our whole society is reviewing this stuff now. We live our lives recursively; our society also lives its greater life often as a recursion.
       The object of our contemplation is a curious and even fabled old chemical reaction which seems to have escaped serious notice in our country -- at least since the end of WWII and probably before. Now all of a sudden it is being dusted off. Not surprisingly, before much else is done, the first idea that occurs to those doing the dusting is "let's change it." This may be the way of keeping it new. Why is it sociologically, psychologically or economically necessary to create novelty? This is something to mull over even if you do not know any chemistry.