General Chemistry I

Fall 2010Dr Ian Balcom

Outline

• Introductions• Syllabus• Sign up for PBworks!• History of Chemistry (Brief)

Lecture 1: History of Chemistry

• Prehistoric “chemistry”– Fire: Perhaps the first controlled chemical

reaction. • cooking and habitat lighting, to more advanced

technologies, such as pottery, bricks, and melting of metals to make tools.

– Philosophical outlook on why substances have different properties, exist in different states, and react in different manners when exposed to environments.

• Every early civilization had theories on these observations. – Attempted to identify a small number of primary

elements that make up all things.– air, water, and soil/earth, energy forms, such as fire and

light, and more abstract concepts such as ideas, ether, and heaven, were common in ancient civilizations.

– Greek, Indian, Mayan, and ancient Chinese philosophies all considered air, water, earth and fire as primary elements

Atomism

• Leucippus & Democritus: fifth century BC

• Kanada• atoms were the most

indivisible part of matter

Metallurgy

• Fire– Glass– Purification of metals

• The first evidence of human metallurgy dates from the 5th and 6th millennium BC

• By learning to get copper and tin by heating rocks and combining those two metals to make an alloy called bronze, the technology of metallurgy began about 3500 B.C. with the Bronze Age.

Alchemy

• Philosopher's stone: People sought to make gold out of cheaper metals.

• Also sought cures for diseases.

• “elixir of life”• Believed there was an

“ether” in air

Early Chemists

• Scientific methods of chemistry began to emerge in the Muslim world.

• 9th Century Jabir Ibin Hayyan “Geber”: Father of chemistry