Chemistry is the study of the composition, properties, and interactions of matter.
● Attempts to understand the behavior of matter extend back more than 2,500 years.
○ Greeks: Matter consists of four elements: earth, air, fire, and water
○ Alchemists attempted to transform base metals into noble metals
● Examples of chemistry in everyday life
○ Digesting food
○ Synthesizing polymers for clothing, cookware, and credit cards
○ Refining crude oil into gasoline and other products
● As you proceed through this course, you will discover
○ Many different examples of changes in the composition and structure of matter
○ How to classify these changes in matter and understand how they occur
○ The changes in energy that accompany these changes in matter
● Chemistry is a science based on observation and experimentation
● Chemists often formulate a hypothesis: a tentative explanation of observations
● The laws of science summarize a vast number of experimental observations and
describe or predict some facet of the natural world
● Theory; a well-substantiated, comprehensive, testable explanation of a particular aspect
of nature
Chemists study and describe the behavior of matter and energy in three different domains.
1. The macroscopic domain is familiar to us: It is the realm of everyday things that are large
enough to be sensed directly by human sight or touch
2. The microscopic domain of chemistry is almost always visited in the imagination. Micro
also comes from Greek and means small. Some aspects of the microscopic domains are
visible through a microscope.
● Attempts to understand the behavior of matter extend back more than 2,500 years.
○ Greeks: Matter consists of four elements: earth, air, fire, and water
○ Alchemists attempted to transform base metals into noble metals
● Examples of chemistry in everyday life
○ Digesting food
○ Synthesizing polymers for clothing, cookware, and credit cards
○ Refining crude oil into gasoline and other products
● As you proceed through this course, you will discover
○ Many different examples of changes in the composition and structure of matter
○ How to classify these changes in matter and understand how they occur
○ The changes in energy that accompany these changes in matter
● Chemistry is a science based on observation and experimentation
● Chemists often formulate a hypothesis: a tentative explanation of observations
● The laws of science summarize a vast number of experimental observations and
describe or predict some facet of the natural world
● Theory; a well-substantiated, comprehensive, testable explanation of a particular aspect
of nature
Chemists study and describe the behavior of matter and energy in three different domains.
1. The macroscopic domain is familiar to us: It is the realm of everyday things that are large
enough to be sensed directly by human sight or touch
2. The microscopic domain of chemistry is almost always visited in the imagination. Micro
also comes from Greek and means small. Some aspects of the microscopic domains are
visible through a microscope.
