THE LANGUAGE OF CHEMISTRY

By the time you are old enough to read this book you will surely have heard people using words like these atom, molecule, element and compound. You may know what some of them mean, but others may seem too difficult to worry about. You may have seen some strange combinations of numbers and letters, too, like those shown here, and wondered what in the world they could mean  

Chemistry, like all the physical sciences, is based on laws of nature too. When the same atoms (the smallest whole particles of matter) or combinations of atoms come together under the same circumstances, the same chemical reactions always take place. Time after time, chemists have found molecules (small groups of atoms bound together chemically) behaving in exactly the same way, when conditions governing them are the same. 

Now let s try to understand this language of the chemist. Atoms and molecules are not always synonymous but in certain cases they are. An atom, by itself, is a single unit, so an atom cannot be made any simpler, except under exceptional circumstances. A molecule may consist of one atom or more than one. Thus it can often be made simpler. 

Chemists have agreed on a sort of scientific shorthand in which letters stand for the names of elements, substances composed of only one kind of atom. They call these letters chemical symbols. Combinations of symbols represent the different atoms in a particular kind of molecule. These combinations are called formulas, and they show what elements are contained in a compound. A compound, as you can probably tell, is a substance made up of molecules 

using the atoms of the common elements, let s look at how this language works. You will see that it is really simple. 

---

The objective of this chapter is to provide a basis for some understanding of chemistry and the chemical industry. Segments and characteristics of the industry together with important events in chemical history are briefly presented. The language of chemistry is introduced and important chemical terms are defined. 

A major part in the language of chemistry is in learning the names of the chemicals (nomenclature). Many chemicals, particularly the more common ones, are known by several different names. For example, the chemical CH3CH2OH has the systematic name ethanol. The publication Chemical Abstracts (American Chemical Society) also uses the name ethanol. The historical or common name is ethyl alcohol or grain alcohol. A nickname for it is just alcohol, and there are various tradenames, depending on the manufacturer. For example, the Fastman Company sells it under the name of Tecsol . Fven trained chemists have trouble with nomenclature, which makes the use of and need for written chemical formulae common among chemists. 

The language of chemistry is understood better when the symbols of the more common elements are known, such as those shown on the following page. Use of these symbols provides a convenient shorthand method for chemists to represent molecular formulae. In these formulae, the subscript number following the atomic symbol denotes how many atoms of that element are in the molecule, for example, the formula for water is H2O, which means each molecule of water contains two atoms of hydrogen (symbol H) and one atom of oxygen (symbol O). 

Crosland, M. P. (1962). Historical Studies in the Language of Chemistry. London Heinemann. 

Anderson, Wilda C. Between the library and the laboratory the language of chemistry in eighteenth-century France.. ... 

Crosland, Maurice P. "Historical studies in the language of chemistry." PhD thesis, University College, London, 1959. 

It is futile to hope for physicists to apply their modern views to chemical phenomena, or even expect these concepts to emerge in user-friendly form. It is incumbent on the chemists themselves to incorporate the ideas of advanced quantum mechanics, relativity and field theory into the canon of chemistry. This procedure requires recasting of the formalisms in different terms into the language of chemistry. 

On Macquer s earlier rhetorical consolidations of chemistry as an authoritative and philosophical discipline, see Wilda Anderson, Between the Library and the Laboratory The Language of Chemistry in Eighteenth-Century France (Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984). 

Findings from computer-based analyses of the language of chemistry A useful principle (i.e., rule of thumb) with broad applications... 

Dalton presented his atomic theory in his bookyl New System of Chemical Philosophy, the first and crucial part of which was published in 1808. His pictures of atoms and molecules provide a unification of the micro-world and the macro-world of chemistry they show at once what we can observe (for example, hydrogen and oxygen combining to make water) and what we cannot the union of real, tangible atoms. Historian of chemistry William Brock says that Dalton s symbols encouraged people to acquire a faith in the reality of chemical atoms and enabled chemists to visualize relatively complex chemical reactions. .. Between them, Lavoisier and Dalton completed a revolution in the language of chemistry. ... 

In everyday language, the word salt implies sodium chloride, NaCl, table salt. In the language of chemistry, however, salt is a general term meaning any ionic compound formed from the reaction between an acid and a base. Hydrogen chloride and sodium hydroxide, for example, react to produce the salt sodium chloride and water ... 

How can we represent the change that occurs when a candle burns in the language of chemistry ... 

In another study, Fourcroy is cast as the historian of the chemical revolution, a role he fulfils admirably as he was both spectator and participant in the most important chemical events of the period.230 The importance of the language of chemistry has been stressed by Trevor Levere231 and by Pierre Laszlo.232 It has also been contended that the new chemistry contained the seeds of later structural concepts.233 This may be pushing the potential of Lavoisier s anti-phlogistic chemistry and its revised nomenclature too far, yet without all these main components, the fundamental reorganization of chemistry could not have been achieved. Fresh interest was also stimulated in Lavoisier s collaborators and contemporaries. For example, the... 

Armed with the language of chemistry, you are now ready to continue your journey. 

Lavoisier himself clearly recognized the importance of language, of chemical nomenclature and of the rules governing that nomenclature. In the preface to his Elements of Chemistry (1789), he began by talking about the language of chemistry ... 

---