Wow, Chemistry!

Is it possible to think of life today without chemistry?

Just look at the world around you and the materials that we use today.

Modern medicine, cement, petrol, synthetic clothes, paper, new kinds of metals, computer, mobile phones, the microprocessor and memory chips, the screen of your television and computers….all these exist due to development in chemistry.

Aren't these central to our existence today?

This is the 21^st century. Imagine for a moment that you are in the 18^th century.

Which of these things or materials would you not find in the 18^th century life?

What is Chemistry?

Chemistry helps us understand two fundamental facts–

The way substances bond to form new substance
The structure of a substance

People who use the principles of chemistry, its methods and techniques are called chemists.

Chemists work in pharmaceutical companies producing medicines, even creating new medicines. They work in food processing industries to create new processes to preserve food for longer duration using chemicals. They work in metallurgical industries and create processes to get more and more metals out of an ore. They work in textile industries; they are the ones who create new kinds of fibres useful under special conditions. They work in foundries creating silicon chips to be used in our computers and phones.

People who work in a specialised area develop their own language with its system of symbols and signs. It helps them communicate within the community better, creating a standardised system. So do chemists have a special language. The language in Chemistry uses English letters to denote names but their origin may be Latin, Greek, etc. These letter symbols may also carry numbers that signifies a value. In Chemistry, like in any developed area of study, there are methods and rules which we shall learn as we go along.