Historical devlopment of modern chemistry

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International Journal of Development Research

Historical devlopment of modern chemistry

Abstract: 

The words ‘’Chemistry” and “Alchemy” have been derived from “Khem”, an ancient name for Egypt. The history of chemistry represents a time span from ancient history to the present. By 1000 BC, civilizations used technologies that would eventually form the basis to the various branches of chemistry. Many chemists lived long ago, so what happened a long time ago is history. Chemistry analyzes the composition of different substances, their physical and chemical properties and the specific conditions under which they combine with other substances. The practical applications of Chemistry affect every aspect of civilization.  By performing experiments and recording the results, alchemists set the stage for modern chemistry. Both alchemy and chemistry are concerned with matter and its transformations, chemists are seen as applying scientific method to their work. Alchemy was that branch of Chemistry which studied the hidden sprit of the elements. The history of chemistry is intertwined with the history of thermodynamics, especially through the work of Willard Gibbs. The idea of a drug appears from the ancient Indian Vedas from before 1000BC. The Chinese Alchemy believed that there were five elements, wood, fire, earth, metal and water, and these were linked to five colors, five directions and to five metals, gold, silver, leads, copper and iron. As a result, every Chinese alchemical technique involved repeating stages five times. Around 420 BC, Empedocles stated that all matter is made up of four elemental substances - earth, fire, air and water. Aristotle (384-323 BC) developed the idea of properties of the elements, saying different types of matter depend on a specific balance of the qualities of hot, cold, wet, and dry. In 1789 a French chemist Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier established the Law of Conservation of Mass, which is also called "Lavoisier's Law and is called "father of modern chemistry. John Dalton in 1803 proposed that matter is composed of indivisible smallest particle called atom.

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