Chemistry is a branch of physical science that studies the composition, structure, properties and

change of matter.[1][2]Chemistry includes topics such as the properties of individual atoms, how
atoms form chemical bonds to create chemical compounds, the interactions of substances
through intermolecular forces that give matter its general properties, and the interactions between
substances through chemical reactions to form different substances.
Chemistry is sometimes called the central science because it bridges other natural sciences,
including physics, geology andbiology.[3][4] For the differences between chemistry and physics
see comparison of chemistry and physics.[5]
The history of chemistry can be traced to alchemy, which had been practiced for
several millennia in various parts of the world.

Contents
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1Etymology

o 1.1Definition

2History

o 2.1Chemistry as science

o 2.2Chemical structure

3Principles of modern chemistry

o 3.1Matter

3.1.1Atom

3.1.2Element

3.1.3Compound

3.1.4Molecule

3.1.5Substance and mixture

3.1.6Mole and amount of substance

o 3.2Phase

o 3.3Bonding

o 3.4Energy

o 3.5Reaction

o 3.6Ions and salts

o 3.7Acidity and basicity

 o 3.8Redox

o 3.9Equilibrium

o 3.10Chemical laws

4Practice

o 4.1Subdisciplines

o 4.2Chemical industry

o 4.3Professional societies

5See also

6References

7Bibliography

8Further reading

9External links

Etymology
The word chemistry comes from alchemy, which referred to an earlier set of practices that
encompassed elements of chemistry, metallurgy, philosophy, astrology, astronomy, mysticism and
medicine. It is often seen as linked to the quest to turn lead or another common starting material
into gold,[6] though in ancient times the study encompassed many of the questions of modern
chemistry being defined as the study of the composition of waters, movement, growth,
embodying, disembodying, drawing the spirits from bodies and bonding the spirits within bodies
by the early 4th century Greek-Egyptian alchemist Zosimos.[7] An alchemist was called a 'chemist'
in popular speech, and later the suffix "-ry" was added to this to describe the art of the chemist as
"chemistry".
The modern word alchemy in turn is derived from the Arabic word al-km (). In origin, the
term is borrowed from the Greek or .[8][9] This may haveEgyptian origins since al-
km is derived from the Greek , which is in turn derived from the word Chemi or Kimi,
which is the ancient name of Egypt inEgyptian.[8] Alternately, al-km may derive from ,
meaning "cast together".[10]

Definition
In retrospect, the definition of chemistry has changed over time, as new discoveries and theories
add to the functionality of the science. The term "chymistry", in the view of noted scientist Robert
Boyle in 1661, meant the subject of the material principles of mixed bodies.[11] In 1663 the
chemist Christopher Glaser described "chymistry" as a scientific art, by which one learns to
dissolve bodies, and draw from them the different substances on their composition, and how to
unite them again, and exalt them to a higher perfection. [12]
The 1730 definition of the word "chemistry", as used by Georg Ernst Stahl, meant the art of
resolving mixed, compound, or aggregate bodies into their principles; and of composing such
bodies from those principles.[13] In 1837, Jean-Baptiste Dumas considered the word "chemistry" to
refer to the science concerned with the laws and effects of molecular forces. [14] This definition
further evolved until, in 1947, it came to mean the science of substances: their structure, their
properties, and the reactions that change them into other substances - a characterization
accepted by Linus Pauling.[15] More recently, in 1998, Professor Raymond Changbroadened the
definition of "chemistry" to mean the study of matter and the changes it undergoes. [16]

History
Main article: History of chemistry
See also: Alchemy and Timeline of chemistry

Democritus' atomist philosophy was later adopted by Epicurus(341270 BCE).

Early civilizations, such as the Egyptians[17] Babylonians, Indians[18] amassed practical knowledge
concerning the arts of metallurgy, pottery and dyes, but didn't develop a systematic theory.
A basic chemical hypothesis first emerged in Classical Greece with the theory of four elements as
propounded definitively byAristotle stating that fire, air, earth and water were the fundamental
elements from which everything is formed as a combination.Greek atomism dates back to 440
BC, arising in works by philosophers such as Democritus and Epicurus. In 50 BC,
the Romanphilosopher Lucretius expanded upon the theory in his book De rerum natura (On The
Nature of Things).[19][20] Unlike modern concepts of science, Greek atomism was purely
philosophical in nature, with little concern for empirical observations and no concern for chemical
experiments.[21]
In the Hellenistic world the art of alchemy first proliferated, mingling magic and occultism into the
study of natural substances with the ultimate goal of transmuting elements into gold and
discovering the elixir of eternal life.[22] Work, particularly the development of distillation, continued
in the early Byzantine period with the most famous practitioner being the 4th century Greek-
Egyptian Zosimos of Panopolis.[23] Alchemy continued to be developed and practised throughout
the Arab world after theMuslim conquests,[24] and from there, and from the Byzantine remnants,
[25]
diffused into medieval and Renaissance Europe through Latin translations. Some influential
Muslim chemists, Ab al-Rayhn al-Brn,[26] Avicenna[27] and Al-Kindi refuted the theories of
alchemy, particularly the theory of the transmutation of metals; and al-Tusi described a version of
the conservation of mass, noting that a body of matter is able to change but is not able to
disappear.[28]

Chemistry as science
Jbir ibn Hayyn (Geber), a Persian alchemist whose experimental research laid the foundations of
chemistry.
The development of the modern scientific method was slow and arduous, but an early scientific
method for chemistry began emerging among early Muslim chemists, beginning with the 9th
century Persian or Arabian chemist Jbir ibn Hayyn (known as "Geber" in Europe), who is
sometimes referred to as "the father of chemistry".[29][30][31][32] He introduced a systematic
andexperimental approach to scientific research based in the laboratory, in contrast to the ancient
Greek and Egyptian alchemists whose works were largely allegorical and often unintelligble.
[33]
Under the influence of the new empirical methodspropounded by Sir Francis Bacon and others,
a group of chemists at Oxford, Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke and John Mayowbegan to reshape
the old alchemical traditions into a scientific discipline. Boyle in particular is regarded as the
founding father of chemistry due to his most important work, the classic chemistry text The
Sceptical Chymist where the differentiation is made between the claims of alchemy and the
empirical scientific discoveries of the new chemistry.[34] He formulatedBoyle's law, rejected the
classical "four elements" and proposed a mechanistic alternative of atoms and chemical
reactionsthat could be subject to rigorous experiment.[35]

Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier is considered the "Father of Modern Chemistry".[36]

The theory of phlogiston (a substance at the root of all combustion) was propounded by the
German Georg Ernst Stahl in the early 18th century and was only overturned by the end of the
century by the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, the chemical analogue of Newton in physics;
who did more than any other to establish the new science on proper theoretical footing, by
elucidating the principle of conservation of mass and developing a new system of chemical
nomenclature used to this day.[37]
Before his work, though, many important discoveries had been made, specifically relating to the
nature of 'air' which was discovered to be composed of many different gases. The Scottish
chemist Joseph Black (the first experimental chemist) and the Dutchman J. B. van
Helmont discovered carbon dioxide, or what Black called 'fixed air' in 1754; Henry
Cavendish discoveredhydrogen and elucidated its properties and Joseph Priestley and,
independently, Carl Wilhelm Scheele isolated pure oxygen.

In his periodic table, Dmitri Mendeleev predicted the existence of 7 new elements,[38] and placed all 60
elements known at the time in their correct places.[39]
English scientist John Dalton proposed the modern theory of atoms; that all substances are
composed of indivisible 'atoms' of matter and that different atoms have varying atomic weights.
The development of the electrochemical theory of chemical combinations occurred in the early
19th century as the result of the work of two scientists in particular, J. J. Berzelius and Humphry
Davy, made possible by the prior invention of the voltaic pile byAlessandro Volta. Davy
discovered nine new elements including the alkali metals by extracting them from
their oxides with electric current.[40]
British William Prout first proposed ordering all the elements by their atomic weight as all atoms
had a weight that was an exact multiple of the atomic weight of hydrogen. J. A. R.
Newlands devised an early table of elements, which was then developed into the modern periodic
table of elements[41] in the 1860s by Dmitri Mendeleev and independently by several other
scientists including Julius Lothar Meyer.[42][43] The inert gases, later called the noble gases were
discovered by William Ramsay in collaboration with Lord Rayleigh at the end of the century,
thereby filling in the basic structure of the table.
Organic chemistry was developed by Justus von Liebig and others, following Friedrich Whler's
synthesis of urea which proved that living organisms were, in theory, reducible to chemistry.
[44]
Other crucial 19th century advances were; an understanding of valence bonding (Edward
Frankland in 1852) and the application of thermodynamics to chemistry (J. W. Gibbs and Svante
Arrhenius in the 1870s).

Chemical structure

Top: Expected results:alpha particles passing through the plum pudding model of the atom undisturbed.
Bottom: Observed results: a small portion of the particles were deflected, indicating a small, concentrated
charge.
At the turn of the twentieth century the theoretical underpinnings of chemistry were finally
understood due to a series of remarkable discoveries that succeeded in probing and discovering
the very nature of the internal structure of atoms. In 1897, J. J. Thomson ofCambridge
University discovered the electron and soon after the French scientist Becquerel as well as the
couple Pierre and Marie Curie investigated the phenomenon of radioactivity. In a series of
pioneering scattering experiments Ernest Rutherford at theUniversity of Manchester discovered
the internal structure of the atom and the existence of the proton, classified and explained the
different types of radioactivity and successfully transmuted the first element by
bombarding nitrogen with alpha particles.
His work on atomic structure was improved on by his students, the Danish physicist Niels
Bohr and Henry Moseley. The electronic theory of chemical bonds and molecular orbitals was
developed by the American scientists Linus Pauling and Gilbert N. Lewis.
The year 2011 was declared by the United Nations as the International Year of Chemistry.[45] It
was an initiative of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, and of the United
Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization and involves chemical societies,
academics, and institutions worldwide and relied on individual initiatives to organize local and
regional activities.

Principles of modern chemistry

Laboratory, Institute of Biochemistry,University of Cologne in Germany.

The current model of atomic structure is the quantum mechanical model.[46] Traditional chemistry
starts with the study of elementary particles, atoms, molecules,[47] substances,
metals, crystals and other aggregates of matter. This matter can be studied in solid, liquid, or
gas states, in isolation or in combination. The interactions, reactions and transformations that are
studied in chemistry are usually the result of interactions between atoms, leading to
rearrangements of the chemical bonds which hold atoms together. Such behaviors are studied in
a chemistry laboratory.
The chemistry laboratory stereotypically uses various forms of laboratory glassware. However
glassware is not central to chemistry, and a great deal of experimental (as well as
applied/industrial) chemistry is done without it.
A chemical reaction is a transformation of some substances into one or more different
substances.[48] The basis of such a chemical transformation is the rearrangement of electrons in
the chemical bonds between atoms. It can be symbolically depicted through a chemical equation,
which usually involves atoms as subjects. The number of atoms on the left and the right in the
equation for a chemical transformation is equal. (When the number of atoms on either side is
unequal, the transformation is referred to as a nuclear reaction or radioactive decay.) The type of
chemical reactions a substance may undergo and the energy changes that may accompany it are
constrained by certain basic rules, known as chemical laws.
Energy and entropy considerations are invariably important in almost all chemical studies.
Chemical substances are classified in terms of their structure, phase, as well as their chemical
compositions. They can be analyzed using the tools of chemical analysis,
e.g. spectroscopy and chromatography. Scientists engaged in chemical research are known
as chemists.[49] Most chemists specialize in one or more sub-disciplines. Several concepts are
essential for the study of chemistry; some of them are: [50]

Matter
Main article: Matter
In chemistry, matter is defined as anything that has rest mass and volume (it takes up space) and
is made up of particles. The particles that make up matter have rest mass as well - not all
particles have rest mass, such as the photon. Matter can be a pure chemical substance or
a mixture of substances.[51]
Atom

A diagram of an atom based on the Rutherford model

The atom is the basic unit of chemistry. It consists of a dense core called the atomic
nucleus surrounded by a space called theelectron cloud. The nucleus is made up of positively
charged protons and uncharged neutrons (together called nucleons), while the electron cloud
consists of negatively charged electrons which orbit the nucleus. In a neutral atom, the negatively
charged electrons balance out the positive charge of the protons. The nucleus is dense; the mass
of a nucleon is 1,836 times that of an electron, yet the radius of an atom is about 10,000 times
that of its nucleus.[52][53]
The atom is also the smallest entity that can be envisaged to retain the chemical properties of the
element, such as electronegativity,ionization potential, preferred oxidation state(s), coordination
number, and preferred types of bonds to form (e.g., metallic, ionic,covalent).
Element

Standard form of the periodic table of chemical elements. The colors represent different categories of
elements
Main article: Chemical element
A chemical element is a pure substance which is composed of a single type of atom,
characterized by its particular number of protons in the nuclei of its atoms, known as the atomic
numberand represented by the symbol Z. The mass number is the sum of the number of protons
and neutrons in a nucleus. Although all the nuclei of all atoms belonging to one element will have
the same atomic number, they may not necessarily have the same mass number; atoms of an
element which have different mass numbers are known as isotopes. For example, all atoms with
6 protons in their nuclei are atoms of the chemical elementcarbon, but atoms of carbon may have
mass numbers of 12 or 13.[53]
The standard presentation of the chemical elements is in the periodic table, which orders
elements by atomic number. The periodic table is arranged in groups, or columns, and periods, or
rows. The periodic table is useful in identifying periodic trends.[54]