Fields of chemistry

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Some Facts about Chemistry

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The science of chemistry deals with substances. Chemistry is the investigation and discussion of the properties of substances.

Common examples of substances are: water, sugar, salt, copper, iron and many others.

Chemists study substances in order to learn as they can about their properties and about the reactions that change them into other substances. This knowledge is very important as it can make the word a better place to live in, it can make people happier, it can raise their living standard.

Chemists discovered many laws, investigated many important phenomena in life. They produced many artificial substances which have valuable properties.

Chemistry has two main aspects: descriptive chemistry, the discovery of chemical facts, and theoretical chemistry, the formulation of theories.

The broad field of chemistry may also be divided in other ways. An important division of chemistry is that into the branches of organic chemistry and inorganic chemistry.

Organic chemistry is the chemistry of the compounds of carbon that occur in plants and animals.

Inorganic chemistry is the chemistry of the compounds of elements other that carbon. Each of these branches of chemistry is in part descriptive and in part theoretical.

The field of chemistry is now a very large one. There are more than 30 different branches of chemistry. Some of them are inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, physical chemistry, analytical chemistry, pharmaceutical chemistry, nuclear chemistry, industrial chemistry, colloidal chemistry, electrochemistry, magnetochemistry, and biochemistry.

Inorganic chemistry. It was originally considered that the field of inorganic chemistry consists of the study of materials not derived from living organisms. However, it now includes all substances except the hydrocarbons and their derivatives.

Organic chemistry. At one time it was thought that all substances found in plants and animals could be made only by using part of a living plant or animal. The study of these substances, most of which contain carbon, was therefore called organic chemistry. It is now know that this idea is quite wrong. In 1828 Fr. Wohler, a German scientist, made in “organic” substance using a simple laboratory process. Organic chemistry now merely means the chemistry of carbon compounds.

Physical chemistry. This field of chemistry is concerned with those parts of chemistry which are closely linked with physics as, for instance, the behaviour of substances when a current of electricity is passed through them.

Electrochemistry is concerned with the relation between electrical energy and chemical change. Electrolysis is the process whereby electrical energy causes a chemical change in the conducting medium, which usually is a solution or a molten substance. The process is generally used as a method of deposition metals from a solution.

Biochemistry. Just as the physical chemist works on the boundaries between physics and chemistry, so the biochemists work on the boundaries between biology and chemistry. Much of the work of the biochemist is connected with foodstuffs and medicines as well as chemical processes taking place in the cellular level. The medicines known as antibiotics, of which penicillin is an early example, were prepared by biochemists.

Notes to the text:

branch –отрасль, область, ветвь

Itwas… considered (thought) – предполагали, считали

It is now known– теперь известно

to cause– вызывать, быть причиной

relation– соотношение, зависимость

conducting medium– проводящая среда

method of deposition metals– метод отложения металлов

just as– точно так же, как

Дата добавления: 2014-11-07