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Chemistry

Chemistry is the science focused on the properties, composition, and transformations of substances, primarily dealing with atoms and their interactions. It seeks to explain the behavior of materials, their enduring properties, and the processes that lead to the formation of new substances. Modern chemistry has advanced significantly, allowing for the study and design of substances at both atomic and molecular levels, impacting various fields including health and technology.

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49 views1 page

Chemistry

Chemistry is the science focused on the properties, composition, and transformations of substances, primarily dealing with atoms and their interactions. It seeks to explain the behavior of materials, their enduring properties, and the processes that lead to the formation of new substances. Modern chemistry has advanced significantly, allowing for the study and design of substances at both atomic and molecular levels, impacting various fields including health and technology.

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Lastregastrega
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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chemistry

chemistry, the science that deals with the properties, composition, and structure of
substances (defined as elements and compounds), the transformations they undergo, and
the energy that is released or absorbed during these processes. Every substance, whether
naturally occurring or artificially produced, consists of one or more of the hundred-odd
species of atoms that have been identified as elements. Although these atoms, in turn, are
composed of more elementary particles, they are the basic building blocks of chemical
substances; there is no quantity of oxygen, mercury, or gold, for example, smaller than
an atom of that substance. Chemistry, therefore, is concerned not with the subatomic
domain but with the properties of atoms and the laws governing their combinations and
how the knowledge of these properties can be used to achieve specific purposes.
The great challenge in chemistry is the development of a coherent explanation of the
complex behaviour of materials, why they appear as they do, what gives them their
enduring properties, and how interactions among different substances can bring about
the formation of new substances and the destruction of old ones. From the earliest
attempts to understand the material world in rational terms, chemists have struggled to
develop theories of matter that satisfactorily explain both permanence and change. The
ordered assembly of indestructible atoms into small and large molecules, or extended
networks of intermingled atoms, is generally accepted as the basis of permanence, while
the reorganization of atoms or molecules into different arrangements lies behind theories
of change. Thus chemistry involves the study of the atomic composition and structural
architecture of substances, as well as the varied interactions among substances that can
lead to sudden, often violent reactions.
Chemistry also is concerned with the utilization of natural substances and the creation of
artificial ones. Cooking, fermentation, glass making, and metallurgy are all chemical
processes that date from the beginnings of civilization. Today, vinyl, Teflon, liquid
crystals, semiconductors, and superconductors represent the fruits of chemical
technology. The 20th century saw dramatic advances in the comprehension of the
marvelous and complex chemistry of living organisms, and a molecular interpretation of
health and disease holds great promise. Modern chemistry, aided by increasingly
sophisticated instruments, studies materials as small as single atoms and as large and
complex as DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), which contains millions of atoms. New
substances can even be designed to bear desired characteristics and then synthesized.

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