The World of Chemistry

Consider the following. Why are some consumer products touted as being chemical-free, and why are so many people drinking bottled water these days Does that mean that chemicals are bad Should you be concerned about this as you shop for consumer goods and food products We ll answer those questions many times as we proceed through this course. 

Making you a little more comfortable with chemistry is a major goal of this course. Let s begin. 

Maybe chemistry means chemicals to you. And perhaps you think this word should be used only with the adjective toxic. That belief wouldn t be surprising, because you have probably heard of toxic chemical spills or warnings about toxics in the environment. Indeed, some chemicals are toxic—very toxic the arsenic of mystery stories, the poisonous gases of World War I, the chemicals released by the microorganism that grows in badly canned food and causes severe food poisoning. 

Learning about chemistry doesn t, however, mean learning only about harmful substances. Nor does it mean learning only about the wonders of our modern world provided by chemistry, such as the medications that cure once-incurable diseases the synthetic fabrics that are beautiful, durable, and inexpensive or the colors on the television screen. 

Instead, we suggest you come to the subject with a What s in it for me attitude, not from a selfish viewpoint, but as a citizen of the world of chemistry. The first photographs of planet Earth taken from the Moon provided a forceful reminder to many of us that this planet and the materials on it are finite. The world of chemistry really has but one concern the materials provided by our planet and what we do with them. 

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The Digital VAX rose to prominence as a departmental minicomputer and became a virtual standard in the world of chemistry. The VAX offered a user-friendly flexible environment, together with what was then considered good computational throughput. Much computational chemistry methodology was developed on the VAX. 

Until about 40 years ago, these elements were referred to as "inert gases" they were believed to be entirely unreactive toward other substances. In 1962 Neil Bartlett, a 29-year-old chemist at the University of British Columbia, shook up the world of chemistry by preparing the first noble-gas compound. In the course of his research on platinum-fluorine compounds, he isolated a reddish solid that he showed to be 02+(PtFB-). Bartlett realized that the ionization energy of Xe (1170 kJ/mol) is virtually identical to that of the 02 molecule (1165 kJ/mol). This encouraged him to attempt to make the analogous compound XePtF6. His success opened up a new era in noble-gas chemistry. 

Chemistry is the science of matter and the changes it can undergo. The world of chemistry therefore embraces everything material around us—the stones we stand on, the food we eat, the flesh we are made of, and the silicon we build into computers. There is nothing material beyond the reach of chemistry, be it living or dead, vegetable or mineral, on Earth or in a distant star. 

Ben-Zvi, R., Silberstein, J., Mamlok, R. (1990). Macro-micro relationships. A key to the world of chemistry. In R L. Lijnse, et al. (Eds.), Relating macroscopic phenomena to microscopic particles. Utrecht CD-Beta Press. 

In spite of the excitement the race to transmutation had spurred in the worlds of chemistry and occult alchemy, the crash came in 1914. The prestige and identity transmutation efforts had conferred upon chemistry were called into question—by physicists. Criticism had already come heavily from physicists such as J. J. Thomson, who debunked some of the experiments following the announcement of the Chemical Society meeting in February 1913, as well as from Rutherford, Royds, and Robert John Strutt (Lord Rayleigh). Even sympathetic chemists such as Madame Curie had been unable to reproduce Ramsay s results. Ramsay s own student and research partner, Egerton, could not successfully repeat the experiments when he went to work in a lab in Berlin. 

Chemistry is an interesting and fundamental branch of science because it gives us the chance to explain the secrets of nature. What is water What do we use in our cars as a fuel What is aspirin What are perfumes made of Many of these kind of questions and their answers are all part of the world of chemistry. There is no industry that does not depend upon chemical substances petroleum, pharmaceuticals, garment, aircraft, steel, electronics, agricultural, etc. This book helps everyone to understand nature. However, one does not need to be a chemist or scientist to understand the simplicity within the complexity around us. 

A production chemist is interested primarily in the macroscopic world, not the microscopic one of atoms and molecules. Even a chemistry student working in the laboratory will not be weighing out individual atoms and molecules, but large numbers of them in grams. There must be a way to bridge the gap between the microscopic world of individual atoms and molecules, and the macroscopic world of grams and kilograms. There is—it is called the mole concept, and it is one of the central concepts in the world of chemistry. 

Like most stories, that of chemistry has another side, less often noted or remarked but a whole lot more pleasant. The world of chemistry is the world of molecules. It is a complex, critical, and fascinating world. Molecules and their constituents (atoms) make up all matter. Specific molecules affect every aspect of our lives every day, frequently for better but occasionally for worse. The simple fact is that almost everything that we use in daily life has been chemically modified in some way consider plastics, alloys, detergents and soaps, paper, perfumes and colognes, and our drinking water. It is difficult to imagine life without the products of modem chemistry. 

Berzelius s accomplishment was a great step forward. However, in the mid-nineteenth century, confusion continued to reign. It appeared that the more that chemists knew, the more puzzles that confronted them. First, there was the question of why there were so many different chemical elements. When Dalton died in 1844, about 50 were known. Was the universe really made of 50 different building blocks The physicists had discovered that fundamental physical laws could be based on simple assumptions. Newton s law of gravitation, for example, could be written using just a few mathematical symbols. Why then should the world of chemistry be so complicated ... 

I elcome to the world of chemistry—a world where everything around you can be traced to these incredibly tiny particles called atoms. Chemistry is the study of how atoms combine to form materials. By learning chemistry, you gain a unique perspective on what things are made of and why they behave as they do. 

The world of chemistry Of molecules and materials, Air around us, All about water. 

The World of Chemistry. 02 Color. 30 min. University of Maryland and the Educational Film Center, 1990. 

For most of you, the procedures in this book will not make sense at first, or will appear to be complicated as a result, many of the procedures in this book may seem foreign, or unfamiliar—if this is the case, then at this exact moment, you are in the right place. Bye the time you have read this book, these foreign procedures will no longer be foreign to you, but in the meantime, lets get started on the world of chemistry. 

Much exciting knowledge awaits you as you prepare to explore the world of chemistry. 

The world of chemistry involves every single aspect, comer, and micro drop of everything that is matter. Our solar system and the entire universe all function on a chemical level—In essence, chemistry is everything. The universe and everything in it is composed of atoms and molecules, and within this massive space, there exists tens of millions of chemical compounds—either known or unknown. The compounds that are known make up only 5% of the naturally occurring compounds, leaving a massive 95% of them being synthetic (prepared in the lab)—all explosives are synthetic. 

Welcome to the world of chemistry. Chemistry is around you all the time and impacts everything you do. Chemical reactions are helping you hold this book, understand the words on this page, and digest the meal you recently ate. Chemistry Success is not intended to be a comprehensive look at chemistry or replace a comprehensive textbook in chemistry. It is anticipated that you use Chemistry Success to help learn the basic concepts of chemistry that will enable you to better understand the comprehensive textbooks and more advanced materials. In addition, Chemistry Success will give you the tools to recognize chemistry in everyday life. What is necessary before you start to learn and comprehend chemistry ... 

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