Basic concepts and law of chemistry

Chemistry is the study of matter, its properties, how and why substances combine or separate to form other substances, and how substances interact with energy. Many people think of chemists as being white-coated scientists mixing strange liquids in a laboratory, but the truth is we are all chemists.

Doctors, nurses and veterinarians must study chemistry, but understanding basic chemistry concepts is important for almost every profession. Chemistry is part of everything in our lives.

Every material in existence is made up of matter — even our own bodies. Chemistry is involved in everything we do, from growing and cooking food to cleaning our homes and bodies to launching a space shuttle. Chemistry is one of the physical sciences that help us to describe and explain our world.

Chemistry also is concerned with the utilization of natural substances and the creation of artificial ones. Cooking, fermentation, glass making, and metallurgy are all chemical processes that date from the beginnings of civilization. Today, vinyl, Teflon, liquid crystals, semiconductors, and superconductors represent the fruits of chemical technology. The 20th century has seen dramatic advances in the comprehension of the marvelous and complex chemistry of living organisms, and a molecular interpretation of health and disease holds great promise. Modern chemistry, aided by increasingly sophisticated instruments, studies materials as small as single atoms and as large and complex as DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), which contains millions of atoms. New substances can even be designed to bear desired characteristics and then synthesized. The rate at which chemical knowledge continues to accumulate is remarkable. Over time more than 8,000,000 different chemical substances, both natural and artificial, have been characterized and produced. The number was less than 500,000 as recently as 1965.

There are five main branches of chemistry, each of which has many areas of study.

1) Analytical chemistry uses qualitative and quantitative observation to identify and measure the physical and chemical properties of substances. In a sense, all chemistry is analytical.

2) Physical chemistry combines chemistry with physics. Physical chemists study how matter and energy interact. Thermodynamics and quantum mechanics are two of the important branches of physical chemistry.

3) Organic chemistry specifically studies compounds that contain the element carbon. Carbon has many unique properties that allow it to form complex chemical bonds and very large molecules. Organic chemistry is known as the “Chemistry of Life” because all of the molecules that make up living tissue have carbon as part of their makeup.

4) Inorganic chemistry studies materials such as metals and gases that do not have carbon as part of their makeup.

5) Biochemistry is the study of chemical processes that occur within living organisms.