History of Chemistry

History, Definitions, and People

Corpus Christi SchoolChemistry Department

Science of Matter and the changes it undergoes during chemical reactions.

More on the composition, behaviour, structure, and properties of matter

What is Chemistry?

Etymyology: “KEME” Arabian

“Value” “KHEMIA” Egyptian

“Transmutation” “Kyhmeia” Greek

“Art of Alloying Metal

‘Khumeia” “putting together”

What is Chemistry?

Chemistry is a Natural Science that falls under Physical Chemistry

What is Chemistry?

Alchemy is the ancient art of trying to achieve wisdom and immortality through the manipulation of elements.

The origins of alchemy are generally unknown but we believe it began in Greece or Egypt.

What is Alchemy?

Their main goal was the transmutation of ordinary metals into gold.

Not just regular gold though, gold that could be ingested and would cure all illness and make you immortal – elixir of Life.

Alchemists

- Through alchemy we have gotten herbal remedies, alloys, and most importantly a desire to manipulate the world around us!

Proto - Chemistry

Ancient Civilization Purifying and

Extracting Metals Dying Cloth Materials Fermentation of Wine Cosmetics Paintings Medicines Food Making Making Alloys

Early Chemistry

Early Scientists

Suggested that matter could be cut until it reached a point where no further division could be made.

“Atom” means indivisible.

Democritus (400 B.C.)

1st true “chemist”

Discovered a relationship between pressure and volume (Boyle’s Law)

Robert Boyle (1600’s)

Matter cannot be created or destroyed

“Law of Conservation of

Mass”

Antoine Lavoisier (1770)

The ratios of the masses of elements in a compound can always be reduced to small whole numbers

“Law of Multiple Proportions”

John Dalton (1800’s)

Measured the volumes of gases that reacted with one another to develop the

“Law of Combining Volumes of

Gases”

Joseph Gay-Lussac (1809)

At the same temperature and pressure, equal volumes of gases contain the same number of particles

“Avogadro’s Hypothesis”

Amadeo Avogadro

Found that when heated, different elements produced different colors in a flame

Robert Bunsen

Constructed a periodic table by arranging elements

left gaps for undiscovered elements and reversed the order of some elements to make their chemical properties fit.

Niels Mendeleev (1869)

Electrons “orbit” the nucleus somewhat like planets orbit the sun

Planetary Model

Niels Bohr (1912)