History of Chemistry

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Alchemists of the medieval age strived to turn cheap metals into gold with no avail. Chemists of today have already achieved turning metal into gold, however it’s not something that one could make profit on. 30 years ago bismuth was successfully transmuted into gold by chemists. The bismuth was collided at near light speeds by beams of carbon and neon nuclei. It required a lot of energy and the result was a miniscule amount of gold.

Before the time of modern chemistry and alchemy Aristotle deduced the elements were 4; earth, air, water and fire. Aristotle’s theory lead to the belief that metal could be transmuted into another metal by the rearrangement of their properties mediated by a substance called elixir. The elixir was thought to be a dry powder from the mythical philosopher’s stone.

Robert Boyle of the 17th century has been considered to have started the birth of chemistry mentioning is his work The Skeptical Chymist that all theories must be proved experimentally before being accepted. At the time phlogiston was the accepted theory to why things burned. Flammable materials such as wood were thought to have plenty of phlogiston while things like iron that didn’t burn, had little. Air was thought to have no effect, until Joseph Priestley acquired dephlogisticated air from focusing the sun at mercuric oxide inside a glass tube. That gas was oxygen.

Modern chemistry brought the world X-rays, electricity and the atom. John Dalton published Atomic Theory which states that all matter is composed of atoms that are indivisible. As time grew on the atom became more detailed containing a nucleus and a cloud of electrons. Soon after the neutron was discovered Enrico Fermi won a nobel prize for shooting neutrons at elements and producing nuclear fission with uranium. This resulted into the birth to the atom bomb, giving humanity the power to possibly wipe out the life out of earth.

Today particle accelerators such as the large hadron collider are used to further study the atom and subatomic particles, pushing science a step forward.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen#History

http://www.crystalinks.com/philosopherstone.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chemistry

http://www.crystalinks.com/philosopherstone.html

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/chemistry/chem-c2507/navbar/chemhist.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemistry

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-lead-can-be-turned-into-gold/

http://chemistry.about.com/cs/generalchemistry/a/aa050601a.htm