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What Is The Historical Background of Chemistry?

Chemistry began in prehistoric times with the use of fire to produce transformations like cooking and pottery firing. Greek philosophers developed early theories of chemistry, proposing that all matter is made of combinations of four elements. Alchemists from 500-1600 AD experimented to try to prolong life and transform metals, laying foundations for systematic experimentation. Modern chemistry emerged in the 17th-18th centuries with discoveries like oxygen and laws like Boyle's Gas Law. Antoine Lavoisier established chemistry as a science in the late 18th century through quantitative experiments and contributions to chemical nomenclature and the law of mass conservation.

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Jam Realubit
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79 views

What Is The Historical Background of Chemistry?

Chemistry began in prehistoric times with the use of fire to produce transformations like cooking and pottery firing. Greek philosophers developed early theories of chemistry, proposing that all matter is made of combinations of four elements. Alchemists from 500-1600 AD experimented to try to prolong life and transform metals, laying foundations for systematic experimentation. Modern chemistry emerged in the 17th-18th centuries with discoveries like oxygen and laws like Boyle's Gas Law. Antoine Lavoisier established chemistry as a science in the late 18th century through quantitative experiments and contributions to chemical nomenclature and the law of mass conservation.

Uploaded by

Jam Realubit
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© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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What is the historical background of chemistry?

Humans began to practice chemistry, the transformation of material thing, in prehistoric times, beginning with the use of fire. Primitive humans used fire to produce such chemical transformations as the burning of the wood, the cooking of the food, and the firing of pottery and bricks, and later to work with such ores as copper, silver, and gold. As civilization developed in China, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, artisans performed further transformations to produce a variety of dyes, drugs, glazes, glasses, perfumes and metals.

The Greek philosophers paved the way for an understanding of chemistry on an intellectual and scientific basis. Heraclitus, in the 6th century BC, asked whether there is anything visible or invisible that did not change. After considerable discussion of this question by Greek philosophers, Aristotle, 4th century BC, formulated a theory that dominated scientific theory for almost 2000 years. He postulated the existence of a primeval matter and four qualities: heat, cold, wetness, and dryness. As these qualities were impressed on the primeval matter, four elements were produced: fire (hot and dry), air (hot and wet), earth (cold and dry), and water (cold and wet). All material things were viewed as different combinations of these four elements.

The earliest attempts in uncovering many facts about nature can be attributed to alchemist (A.D. 500-1600). The alchemists main goals during those times were to find methods of increasing human life span and to change base metals such as iron, zinc, and copper into gold. They believed that gold could rid the body of all diseases and renew life. Attempts to carry out these manipulations paved the way for systematic experimentation.

The real beginning of modern chemistry can be traced to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Carl Wilhelm Scheele (1742-1786) discovered oxygen between 1772 and 1774. Further experiments on this element were carried out by Joseph Priestly (1733-1804), who is identified as the discoverer of oxygen in 1774. With the publication of Priestlys work in 1777 emerged the first attempt to discuss the concept of scientific theories.

Robert Boyle (1672- 1691) is credited with the discovery of the law showing the relationship between pressure and volume of a gas. He also wrote a book in which he criticized the ideas of alchemy. This book paved the way for the beginning of modern chemistry.

The so-called revolution took place in the eighteenth century. A French chemist, AntoineLaurent Lavosier (1743- 1794), placed chemistry on a firm scientific foundation with experiments where he made quantitative measurements of the masses of the substances involved in chemical reactions. He contributed greatly to the organization of chemical data, the naming of substances, and the formulation of the law of mass conservation. For this, Lavosier is known as the Father of modern chemistry.

ASSIGNMENT #1 in CHEMISTRY

Submitted By: Realubit, Jam Angelo A. 3rd yr. St. Philomena

Submitted To: Ms. Maryan Garcelan

June 14, 2012

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