# data[].attributes.headline
What are three important discoveries that have been made because of Chemistry? 

# data[].attributes.subject
What are three important discoveries that have been made because of Chemistry? 

# data[].attributes.body
Radioactivity, Electrons and Oxygen.These are three important discoveries that have been made because of chemistry.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Throughout history, many great discoveries have been made either by accident or someone searching for the way that something works. Some of these discoveries are more important than others, but they are all important nonetheless. Some are in the field of chemistry while others have a basis in chemistry and they also combine ideas from physics and other sciences.

Periodic Table of the Elements

The periodic table of the elements is one of the most important developments in the history of the field of chemistry. The periodic table consists of all of the chemical elements that are known and they are arranged and organized on the table according to their electron configurations, atomic numbers, and their recurring chemical properties. The order in which the elements are presented on the table correspond to their atomic number.

The person who first published the periodic table of the elements was Dmitri Mendeleev, a Russian chemist. He developed the table based on his findings and the findings of other chemists, including John Newlands and Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier. Newlands published a work entitled the Law of Octaves in 1865. This work discussed the periodicity of the known elements of the time according to their atomic weight. In his work, he also made a proposal that helped identify the potential for elements, including germanium. However, the Society of Chemists did not recognize or endorse his idea until more than two decades later.

Mendeleev published a two-volume work entitled Principles of Chemistry between 1868 and 1870, after he became a teacher. This work because the ultimate textbook regarding chemistry and the elements. In the book, he strived use a chemical's properties in order to classify them in a simple table.

Oxygen

While oxygen has always existed since before mankind was even on the earth, discovering the nature of oxygen and its elements was a huge accomplishment in the history of chemistry. Joseph Priestley is the scientist who is credited with discovering oxygen in 1774, but Antoine Lavoisier gets the credit for discovering the element that oxygen is made from.

However, there is some controversy over who was actually the first person to discover this all-important element. In 1772, a Swedish chemist by the name of Carl Wilhelm Scheele made the same discovery that Priestley made. Unfortunately, he didn't officially publish his findings until 1777, which was five years after his discovery.

Priestley conducted several experiments to help understand the nature of oxygen better. He experimented with its role in respiration and in combustion. He also used oxygen in an experiment in which he dissolved fixed air in water. This created carbonated water, but he called it "dephlogisticated air."

While Priestley experimented with oxygen and found out much about it, it was Lavoisier who actually gave the element its name. He also accurately described how it plays a role in combustion. In addition, he worked with others to help come up with oxygen's chemical nomenclature.

Electrons

Electrons are negatively charged particles, but that was unknown for many years. Scientists knew about electricity and worked with it for many years before they understood that its current was actually composed of electrons. Many scientists worked with cathode tubes which created streams of electricity, but they were not sure how it actually worked.

Some thought that the cathode rays were actually streams of particles. Others thought the rays traveled through a mysterious "ether." It wasn't until 1897 when JJ Thomson decided to find out what exactly was going on with electric currents. Thomson, who taught physics at the UK's Cambridge University, placed cathode tubes in magnetic and electric fields. He knew that the fields moved particles from one side to another, but they did not have an effect on how the waves actually move.

During his experiments, he found that the cathode rays bend over to one side. As a result, he determined that cathode rays must be made of small particles, which he termed "corpuscles." At first, he thought these small particles were too small for anybody to care about. However, he found out that electric currents were composed of moving electrons. And since most of the products that people use these days are operated by electricity, the electron became one of the most important discoveries in chemistry and physics.

LSD

One of the most popular and most widely used psychedelic drugs during the 1960s was LSD. It is still used today by people who like to go on psychedelic "trips" from time to time. But LSD was not invented as a way for people to get high. In fact, its psychedelic properties were not even discovered until five years later.

Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman is credited with being the first to synthesize LSD on November 16, 1938 while working in Switzerland at the Sandoz Laboratories. At the time, he was part of a much larger research program that was looking for alkaloid derivatives. They had been researching ergot, which is a fungus that is found in some types of tainted breads and had been used for medicinal purposes for decades. When it is in its natural form, ergot is a fatal poison that caused hundreds of thousands of deaths over the centuries. But it wasn't until the late 17 th century when ergot was believed to be the cause of the numerous deaths.

When administered in small doses, however, ergot could be used to constrict blood vessels and help with childbirth. Part of the problem was isolating the useful properties of this fungus to prevent other unwanted reactions. This is what Hoffman's team was working on at Sandoz.

Five years after it was first synthesized, Hofmann decided to work on it some more. While he was re-synthesizing it in order to extend the study of it, he grew dizzy and had to take a break from working on it. He wrote in his journal that he had to go back home where he then felt dizzy and restless. He also described feeling as though he was in an intoxicated state with a highly stimulated imagination. It was almost dreamlike, as he wrote in his journal. He described seen amazing pictures and intense colors in a kaleidoscope fashion. In all, Hofmann said the experience lasted for about two hours before it began to fade away.

Atomic Theory

In 1808, John Dalton discovered a way to link invisible atoms together to things that had measurable qualities, such as a mineral's mass or the volume of a certain gas. In his theory, he stated that elements consist of small microscopic particles that are called atoms. His theory went on to state that a pure element only consists of identical atoms that have the same mass.

Dalton wasn't the first person to believe that all life was made up of tiny particles called atoms, though. This idea originated to the 5 th century in Greece when Leucippus of Miletus, a Greek philosopher of the time, and his student Democritus believed that atoms were too small to be seen. Their theory went on to say that atoms were solid and did not have any internal structure. They also believed that taste, color and other qualities were made up of atoms.

Aristotle did not agree with the theory that everything was made up of small particles. And since he was such an influential person of his time and even beyond his time, the philosophy of an atomic theory was largely dismissed for several centuries.

Dalton gave credibility to the idea of the atomic theory when he published A New System of Chemical Philosophy. His theory was based on four ides. The first is that atoms composed chemical elements. The second is that the atoms in an element had the exact same weight. Third, the atoms in different elements had varying weights. And finally, atoms only combined in small ratios of whole numbers in order to form compounds. The Greeks had many of these ideas and Dalton built on them. His main contribution to the theory was a way to determine an elements atomic weight. In 1805, he published an essay which included the atomic weights for more than 20 elements. In addition, Dalton is also credited with being the first person to provide standard symbols for recognizing the elements.

Smallpox Vaccine

The smallpox vaccine may have been one of the most important chemistry discoveries in the history of mankind. Smallpox was a condition that was running rampant throughout the West and in Europe during the 17 th and 18 th centuries. There would be epidemics periodically and these epidemics would wipe out a huge portion of the population. In some cases, it killed as many as 35 percent of the people who became infected with it. Most of those who survived smallpox had scars and problems for the rest of their lives after the infection. It affected everybody - those who were poor and even those who were wealthy. However, the eastern countries were dealing with smallpox very effectively and they had prevented the disease for several centuries. Places like China, the Middle East and even Africa had a method for preventing smallpox that was soon introduced to the West.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu gets credit for raising awareness of the rest of the world's method for dealing with smallpox. She was a member of the British nobility and she lived in Turkey during the time her husband, a British ambassador, was stationed there. She contracted smallpox in 1715 but survived. However, the disease had taken its toll on her physical appearance, causing her face to be misshapen and extremely scarred. She didn't want her kid to go through the same thing so she was very interested when she heard that the Turks had a way to prevent this illness.

The idea that other parts of the world used for preventing smallpox was inoculation. This is where very small particles of the disease was given to a person, either inhaled through their nose or through an opening on their skin. The person then experienced a mild case of the disease, but their body would build up an immunity to it so they would be immune to it forever.

Lady Mary advocated for inoculation when she returned to England in 1721. She had her own two children inoculated with smallpox and they survived without any lifetime effects. Many people brought their children to be inoculated and even the Royal Family had their children inoculated, only after the condition that six prisoners would be inoculated first. All prisoners survived the inoculation and were given a pardon on the remainder of their sentences.

Although Lady Mary brought the idea to the West, Edward Jenner is the one credited with discovering and developing the modern vaccine for smallpox. Using information from studies on the cowpox virus, which is similar to smallpox, he was able to make a vaccine that was safer to use for humans. In fact, the word "vaccine" is actually derived from the Latin word "vaca," which means cow. He did many experiments with his cowpox vaccine and in 1796, he presented his data to the Royal Society. Jenner was able to reduce the death rate from smallpox from a high mortality rate down to almost zero.

In the 1970s, it was announced that the smallpox vaccine had essentially been eradicated. There are still two samples of the original virus - one at the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology in Koltsovo, Russia, and one at the CDC in Atlanta, Georgia. They are kept around mainly for research purposes, but also in case there is a new outbreak and these samples are needed to create a new vaccine.

Radioactivity

In the 1890s and early 1900s, Marie and Pierre Curie worked with uranium ore, extracting the uranium from it and experimenting with it and studying it. As a result, they discovered and were able to isolate radioactive materials. Marie found that the residual materials from the uranium were actually more active than pure uranium.

The Curies were building on earlier findings that were discovered by Antoine Henri Becquerel in 1896. He was a French scientist who was doing experiments on exposing uranium-bearing crystal to the sunlight. After sitting the uranium in the sun and then placing it on a photographic plate, there was an image on the plate. He put the uranium in a drawer for a few days because the weather was cloudy and sunlight experiments were not possible. When he came back to the uranium a few days later, he found that it had left an image even though there was no light. This was radioactivity, but it was the Curies who coined the term following their experiments with spontaneous emissions.

In 1903, the Curies and Becquerel shared the Nobel Prize in physics for their work in discovering radioactivity. Marie Curie won another Nobel Prize in 1911 for discovering radium and polonium, becoming the only person to win two Nobel Prizes.

Pasteurization

The process of pasteurization has been called one of the most important discoveries in science and chemistry because of the numerous lives that it has saved through preventing disease. Discovered by French scientist Louis Pasteur in the 1800s, pasteurization was a method by which milk was heated to a high temperature and then cooled down quickly before it was bottled. This helped the milk stay fresh for a long period of time.

But this method has been used in the food and drink industry since then for many other things because it helps delay the spoilage process that is caused by the growth of microbes in food and drinks. In France, he applied his research and findings to the wine and beer industry, saving them from certain collapse that was coming from the problems of production and contamination.

In 1863, Napoleon III commissioned Pasteur to study wine contamination. He found that the contamination was caused by microbes and he began heating the wine to temperatures between 120 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit, which killed the microbes. This was called pasteurization.

Teflon

Roy Plunkett accidentally invented Teflon, the non-stick substance that most cookware uses these days, in 1938 while working at Kinetic Chemicals. He was working on creating a new CFC refrigerant at the time. But during his experiments using a pressurized storage container, he found that the iron from the inside of the container he was using actually acted as a catalyst.

Nearly 20 years later, a French engineer by the name of Marc Gregoire used Plunkett's findings and coated a cooking pan for the first time with the Teflon resin. The brand was called Tefal.

Teflon is one of the most slippery materials known today and it is inert to almost all chemicals. It was first marketed in 1945 under the Dupont company. Its molecular weight can be more than 30,000,000, which means that it is one of the largest molecules known to be in existence. It is a colorless and odorless power that has revolutionized the cooking industry by making non-stick pans and pots available to the average consumer. But it also has a much wider range of uses for industrial purposes and household purposes.

Penicillin

The discovery of penicillin is credited to Alexander Fleming, a Scottish scientist and Nobel Prize winner in 1928. Fleming found that growing Penicillium rubens created a property that could be used as an antibiotic. He named this discovery penicillin.

Felming's discovery almost did not happen though. In fact, it was almost thrown away in the trash. He was studying a Petri dish that had already been discarded when he found that the mold in the dish actually contained a powerful antibiotic. At the time of the discovery, Fleming was working at St. Mary's Hospital. He had just returned from a family vacation when he was going through the Petri dishes that he left aside for another scientist to use while he was gone.

Fleming was sorting through the Petri dishes and putting the contaminated ones in a tray that was filled with Lysol. When his former lab assistant, Merlin Pryce, came by to talk to Fleming, Fleming began talking about all of the added work that he was doing lately. He began going through his stack of Petri dishes, some that were not submerged in the Lysol. When he picked up one of the dishes to show Pryce, he noticed that there was a mold in the dish that had killed the staphylococcus bacteria that was growing in there. It was at this point that he realized he may be on to something.

Fleming spent the next few weeks doing experiments and trying to single out the substance in the mold that had killed the bacteria. He discussed his finding with a mold expert - C.J. La Touche - who worked in the same building. That is when they reached the conclusion that the mold had to be a penicillium mold. They also speculated that the mold had possibly floated up to Fleming's lab from La Touche's lab, which was located directly beneath Fleming's. During his further experiments, Fleming found that the new mold he had discovered was non-toxic. He published his findings in 1929, but there was not a great acceptance of what he found.

While he did discover this antibiotic, it wasn't until nearly a decade later when someone was able to turn this discovery into the drug that it was become today.

With Fleming's discovery of penicillin erupted a strong interest in the field and study of antibiotics in the modern era. And although Fleming gets the credit for discovering this antibiotic property, it wasn't until more than a decade later when Howard Walter Florey, an Australian Nobel Prize winner, along with Ernst Chain and Norman Heatley developed penicillin as a medicine while working at Oxford University during World War II. They isolated the substance that had bacteria-killing properties and turned it into a brown powder. Once they found that it was safe to use, they mass produced it so it could be available to the soldiers during the war. It saved hundreds if not thousands of lives of soldiers who would have died of an infection otherwise. It was used and is still used to treat problems like pneumonia, syphilis, gangrene and much more.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Throughout history, many great discoveries have been made either by accident or someone searching for the way that something works. Some of these discoveries are more important than others, but they are all important nonetheless. Some are in the field of chemistry while others have a basis in chemistry and they also combine ideas from physics and other sciences.

# data[].attributes.body
"Chemistry sometimes is called the "central science" because it connects other sciences to each others, such as biology, physics, geology and environmental science."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Chemistry is the study of matter and energy and the interaction between them. There are many reasons to study chemistry, even if you aren't pursuing a career in science.

Chemistry is everywhere in the world around you! It's in the food you eat, clothes you wear, water you drink, medicines, air, cleaners... you name it. Chemistry sometimes is called the "central science" because it connects other sciences to each other, such as biology, physics, geology, and environmental science. Here are some of the best reasons to study chemistry.

1. Chemistry helps you to understand the world around you. Why do leaves change color in the fall? Why are plants green? How is cheese made? What is in soap and how does it clean? These are all questions that can be answered by applying chemistry.

2. Basic knowledge of chemistry helps you to read and understand product labels.

3. Chemistry can help you make informed decisions. Will a product work as advertised or is it a scam? If you understand how chemistry works you'll be able to separate reasonable expectations from pure fiction.

4. Chemistry is at the heart of cooking. If you understand the chemical reactions involved in making baked goods rise or neutralizing acidity or thickening sauces, chances are you'll be a better cook.

5. A command of chemistry can help keep you safe! You'll know which household chemicals are dangerous to keep together or mix and which can be used safely.

6. Chemistry teaches useful skills. Because it is a science, learning chemistry means learning how to be objective and how to reason and solve problems.

7. Helps you to understand current events, including news about petroleum, product recalls, pollution, the environment and technological advances.

8. Makes life's little mysteries a little less... mysterious. Chemistry explains how things work.

9. Chemistry opens up career options. There are many careers in chemistry, but even if you're looking for a job in another field, the analytical skills you gained in chemistry are helpful. Chemistry applies to the food industry, retail sales, transportation, art, homemaking... really any type of work you can name.

10. Chemistry is fun! There are lots of interesting chemistry projects you can do using common everyday materials. Chemistry projects don't just go boom. They can glow in the dark, change colors, produces bubbles and change states.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why Study Chemistry? Here Are Good Reasons

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
There are lots of reasons why you should study chemistry, even if you aren't interested in science. Here are reasons.

# data[].attributes.body
Solid, Liquid, Gas and Plasma. These are the states of matter

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What is matter? Matter is everything around you. Atoms and compounds are all made of very small parts of matter. Those atoms go on to build the things you see and touch every day. Matter is defined as anything that has mass and takes up space (it has volume).

What is mass? Mass is the amount of matter in an object. You might have a small object with a lot of mass such as a statue made of lead (Pb). You might have a large object with very little mass such as a balloon filled with helium (He). You should also know there is a difference between mass and weight. Mass is a measure of the matter in an object while weight is a measure of gravity's pull on an object.

What is volume? Volume is the amount of space something occupies. Words such as big, little, long, or short are used to describe volumes. A marble takes up a small volume while a star occupies a large volume. Different states of matter will fill volumes in different ways.

Even though matter can be found all over the Universe, you will only find it in a few forms (states) on Earth. We cover five states of matter on the site. Each of those states is sometimes called a phase. There are many other states of matter that exist in extreme environments. Scientists will probably discover more states of matter as we continue to explore the Universe.

What are the main states of matter? Everyone should know about solids, liquids, gases, and plasmas. Scientists have always known about solids, liquids, and gases. Plasma was a new idea when it was identified by William Crookes in 1879. We also like to talk about the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). It's a fun state of matter when you remove almost all energy from a system. The scientists (Cornell, Ketterle, and Wieman) who worked with the Bose-Einstein condensate received a Nobel Prize for their work in 2001.

What makes a state of matter? It's all about the physical state and energy in the atoms and molecules. Think about solids. Physical properties of a solid often include "hard" and "brittle." Liquids are fluidy, move around a little, and fill up containers. Gases are always around you, but the molecules of a gas are much farther apart than the molecules in a liquid. If a gas has an odor, you'll often be able to smell it before you can see it. The BEC is all about atoms that are closer and less energetic than atoms in a solid.

What is a physical change in matter? Molecules can move from one physical state to another ( phase change) and not change their atomic structure. Oxygen (O ₂) gas has the same chemical properties as liquid oxygen. The liquid state is colder and denser (less energy), but the molecules are the same. Water (H ₂O) is another example. A water molecule is made up of two hydrogen (H) atoms and one oxygen (O) atom. It has the same molecular structure whether it is a gas, liquid, or solid. Although its physical state may change because of different amounts of energy, its atomic structure remains the same.

So what is a chemical change in matter? Let's start with that glass of pure water. If the formula of water were to change, that would be a chemical change. If you could add a second oxygen atom to a water (H ₂O) molecule, you would have hydrogen peroxide (H ₂O ₂). The molecules would not be "water" anymore. In reality, there are a variety of steps that go into creating hydrogen peroxide from water.

Physical changes are related to changes in the immediate environment such as temperature, pressure, and other physical forces. Chemical changes occur when the bonds between atoms in a compound are created or destroyed. Generally, the basic chemical structure does not change when there is a physical change. Of course, in extreme environments such as the Sun, no molecule is safe from destruction.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Chem4Kids.com: Matter: Definition and Overview

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Chem4Kids.com! This tutorial introduces basics of matter. Other sections include elements, the periodic table, reactions, and biochemistry.

# data[].attributes.body
Matter is everything around us. Matter is defined as anything that has mass and takes up space.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What is matter? Matter is everything around you. Atoms and compounds are all made of very small parts of matter. Those atoms go on to build the things you see and touch every day. Matter is defined as anything that has mass and takes up space (it has volume).

What is mass? Mass is the amount of matter in an object. You might have a small object with a lot of mass such as a statue made of lead (Pb). You might have a large object with very little mass such as a balloon filled with helium (He). You should also know there is a difference between mass and weight. Mass is a measure of the matter in an object while weight is a measure of gravity's pull on an object.

What is volume? Volume is the amount of space something occupies. Words such as big, little, long, or short are used to describe volumes. A marble takes up a small volume while a star occupies a large volume. Different states of matter will fill volumes in different ways.

Even though matter can be found all over the Universe, you will only find it in a few forms (states) on Earth. We cover five states of matter on the site. Each of those states is sometimes called a phase. There are many other states of matter that exist in extreme environments. Scientists will probably discover more states of matter as we continue to explore the Universe.

What are the main states of matter? Everyone should know about solids, liquids, gases, and plasmas. Scientists have always known about solids, liquids, and gases. Plasma was a new idea when it was identified by William Crookes in 1879. We also like to talk about the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). It's a fun state of matter when you remove almost all energy from a system. The scientists (Cornell, Ketterle, and Wieman) who worked with the Bose-Einstein condensate received a Nobel Prize for their work in 2001.

What makes a state of matter? It's all about the physical state and energy in the atoms and molecules. Think about solids. Physical properties of a solid often include "hard" and "brittle." Liquids are fluidy, move around a little, and fill up containers. Gases are always around you, but the molecules of a gas are much farther apart than the molecules in a liquid. If a gas has an odor, you'll often be able to smell it before you can see it. The BEC is all about atoms that are closer and less energetic than atoms in a solid.

What is a physical change in matter? Molecules can move from one physical state to another ( phase change) and not change their atomic structure. Oxygen (O ₂) gas has the same chemical properties as liquid oxygen. The liquid state is colder and denser (less energy), but the molecules are the same. Water (H ₂O) is another example. A water molecule is made up of two hydrogen (H) atoms and one oxygen (O) atom. It has the same molecular structure whether it is a gas, liquid, or solid. Although its physical state may change because of different amounts of energy, its atomic structure remains the same.

So what is a chemical change in matter? Let's start with that glass of pure water. If the formula of water were to change, that would be a chemical change. If you could add a second oxygen atom to a water (H ₂O) molecule, you would have hydrogen peroxide (H ₂O ₂). The molecules would not be "water" anymore. In reality, there are a variety of steps that go into creating hydrogen peroxide from water.

Physical changes are related to changes in the immediate environment such as temperature, pressure, and other physical forces. Chemical changes occur when the bonds between atoms in a compound are created or destroyed. Generally, the basic chemical structure does not change when there is a physical change. Of course, in extreme environments such as the Sun, no molecule is safe from destruction.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Chem4Kids.com: Matter: Definition and Overview

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Chem4Kids.com! This tutorial introduces basics of matter. Other sections include elements, the periodic table, reactions, and biochemistry.

# data[].attributes.body
"Chemistry is the study of matter, its properties, how and why substances combine or separate to form other substances, and how substances interact with energy."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
You might think of chemistry only in the context of lab tests, food additives or dangerous substances, but the field of chemistry involves everything around us.

"Everything you hear, see, smell, taste, and touch involves chemistry and chemicals (matter)," according to the American Chemical Society (opens in new tab) (ACS), a non-profit science organization for the advancement of chemistry, chartered by the U.S. Congress. "And hearing, seeing, tasting, and touching all involve intricate series of chemical reactions and interactions in your body."

So, even if you don't work as a chemist, you're doing chemistry, or something that involves chemistry, with pretty much everything you do. In everyday life, you do chemistry when you cook, when you use cleaning detergents to wipe off your counter, when you take medicine or when you dilute concentrated juice so that the taste isn't as intense.
Related: Whoa! Enormous 'cotton candy' explosion in kids' chemistry lab
According to the ACS, chemistry is the study of matter, defined as anything that has mass and takes up space, and the changes that matter can undergo when it is subject to different environments and conditions.

Chemistry seeks to understand not only the properties of matter, like the mass or composition of a chemical element, but also how and why matter undergoes certain changes - whether something transformed because it combined with another substance, froze because it was left for two weeks in a freezer, or changed colors because it was exposed to too much sunlight.

Chemistry basics

The reason why chemistry touches everything we do is because almost everything in existence can be broken down into chemical building blocks.
Related: How are elements grouped in the periodic table?
The main building blocks in chemistry are chemical elements, which are substances made of a single atom. Each chemical is unique, composed of a set number of protons, neutrons and electrons, and is identified by a name and a chemical symbol, such as "C" for carbon. The elements that scientists have discovered so far are listed in the periodic table of elements, and include both elements that are found in nature like carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, as well as those that are manmade, like Lawrencium.

Chemical elements can bond together to form chemical compounds, which are substances made up of multiple elements, like carbon dioxide (which is made of one carbon atom connected to two oxygen atoms), or multiple atoms of a single element, like oxygen gas (which is made of two oxygen atoms connected together). These chemical compounds can then bond with other compounds or elements to form countless other substances and materials.

Chemistry as a physical science

Chemistry is typically considered a physical science, as defined by the Encyclopedia Britannica (opens in new tab), because the study of chemistry does not involve living things. Most of the chemistry involved in research and development, such as making new products and materials for customers, falls within this purview.

But the distinction as a physical science becomes a bit blurry in the case of biochemistry, which explores the chemistry of living things, according to the Biochemical Society (opens in new tab). The chemicals and chemical processes studied by biochemists are not technically considered "living," but understanding them is important to understanding how life works.

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

(opens in new tab)

The five main branches of chemistry

Traditionally, chemistry is broken into five main branches, according to the online chemistry textbook published by LibreText (opens in new tab). There are also more specialized fields, such as food chemistry, environmental chemistry and nuclear chemistry, but this section focuses on chemistry's five major subdisciplines.

Analytical chemistry involves the analysis of chemicals, and includes qualitative methods like looking at color changes, as well as quantitative methods like examining the exact wavelength(s) of light that a chemical absorbed to result in that color change.
Related: Autoimmune disease: definition and examples
These methods enable scientists to characterize many different properties of chemicals, and can benefit society in a number of ways. For example, analytical chemistry helps food companies make tastier frozen dinners by detecting how chemicals in food change (opens in new tab) when they are frozen over time. Analytical chemistry is also used to monitor the health of the environment by measuring chemicals in water or soil, for example.

Biochemistry, as mentioned above, uses chemistry techniques to understand how biological systems work at a chemical level. Thanks to biochemistry, researchers have been able to map out the human genome, understand what different proteins do in the body and develop cures for many diseases.

Inorganic chemistry studies the chemical compounds in inorganic, or non-living things such as minerals and metals. Traditionally, inorganic chemistry considers compounds that do not contain carbon (which are covered by organic chemistry), but this definition is not completely accurate, according to the ACS (opens in new tab).

Some compounds studied in inorganic chemistry, like "organometallic compounds," contain metals, which are metals that are attached to carbon - the main element that's studied in organic chemistry. As such, compounds such as these are considered part of both fields.
Related: Nobel Prize in chemistry given for solvers of 'mirror-image problem'
Inorganic chemistry is used to create a variety of products, including paints, fertilizers and sunscreens.

Organic chemistry deals with chemical compounds that contain carbon, an element considered essential to life. Organic chemists study the composition, structure, properties and reactions of such compounds, which along with carbon, contain other non-carbon elements such as hydrogen, sulfur and silicon. Organic chemistry is used in many applications, as described by the ACS (opens in new tab), such as biotechnology, the petroleum industry, pharmaceuticals and plastics.

Physical chemistry uses concepts from physics to understand how chemistry works. For example, figuring out how atoms move and interact with each other, or why some liquids, including water, turn into vapor at high temperatures. Physical chemists try to understand these phenomena at a very small scale - on the level of atoms and molecules - to derive conclusions about how chemical reactions work and what gives specific materials their own unique properties.
Research and development
This type of research helps inform other branches of chemistry and is important for product development, according to the ACS (opens in new tab). For example, physical chemists may study how certain materials, such as plastic, may react with chemicals the material is designed to come in contact with.

What do chemists do?

Chemists work in a variety of fields, including research and development, quality control, manufacturing, environmental protection, consulting and law. They can work at universities, for the government or in private industry, according to the ACS (opens in new tab).
Environmental protection
Here are some examples of what chemists do:
Related: Pesticide residue linked to lower fertility in women Law
In academia, chemists performing research aim to further knowledge about a particular topic, and may not necessarily have a specific application in mind. Their results, however, can still be applied to relevant products and applications.

In industry, chemists in research and development use scientific knowledge to develop or improve a specific product or process. For example, food chemists improve the quality, safety, storage and taste of food; pharmaceutical chemists develop and analyze the quality of drugs and other medical formulations; and agricultural chemists develop fertilizers, insecticides and herbicides necessary for large-scale crop production.

Sometimes, research and development may not involve bettering the product itself, but rather the manufacturing process involved in making that product. Chemical engineers and process engineers devise new ways to make the manufacturing of their products easier and more cost effective, such as increasing the speed and/or yield of a product for a given budget.
This article was updated on Nov. 5 by How It Works Editor Ben Biggs
Environmental chemists study how chemicals interact with the natural environment, characterizing the chemicals and chemical reactions present in natural processes in the soil, water and air. For example, scientists can collect soil, water or air from a place of interest and analyze it in a laboratory to determine if human activities have contaminated, or will contaminate, the environment or affect it in other ways. Some environmental chemists can also help remediate, or remove contaminants, from the soil, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (opens in new tab).

Scientists with a background in environmental chemistry can also work as consultants for various organizations, such as chemical companies or consulting firms, providing guidance on how practices and procedures can be completed in accordance with environmental regulations.

Chemists can use their academic background to provide advice on or advocate for scientific issues. For instance, chemists may work in intellectual property, where they might apply their scientific background to copyright issues in the sciences, or in environmental law, where they may represent special interest groups and file for approval from regulating agencies before certain activities occur.

Chemists can also perform analyses that help law enforcement. Forensic chemists capture and analyze the physical evidence left behind at a crime scene to help determine the identities of the people involved, as well as to answer other vital questions regarding how and why the crime was carried out. Forensic chemists use a wide variety of analysis methods, such as chromatography and spectrometry, which help identify and quantify chemicals.

Additional resources:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
You might think of chemistry only in the context of lab tests, food additives or dangerous substances, but the field of chemistry involves everything around us. "Everything you hear, see, smell, taste, and touch involves chemistry and chemicals (matter)," according to the American Chemical Society (opens in new tab) (ACS), a non-profit science organization for the advancement of chemistry, chartered by the U.S.