What Has Chemistry Ever Done for Me Essay Example

Chemistry is the branch of science that deals with the structure of organic and inorganic matter( any substance or organism which has a mass and occupies space), its properties and reactions; however chemistry is primarily the study of reactions that any given substance takes on when interacting with another substance. Chemistry is the main incentive for the life that we live today; it has provided modern society with facilities that make our day to day lives easier. Predominantly chemistry has allowed us to understand the composition of the world. In short this branch of science has enabled us to lead a better quality of life.

The first ever study of chemistry can be tracked back to the days of alchemy. Alchemy is an ancient and philosophical study of chemistry, the subject ranged from ancient Egypt to Islamic empires. Alchemists were the first researchers to discover elements, however today their work has been labelled as wrong, meaningless and inventions of the mind. It is an entrenched theory that alchemists believed that lead could be turned into gold and that earth was composed of only four elements, air, water, earth and fire. Alchemists were uneducated, and in simple fruitcakes, but this in fact would be to give a negative image. They did not have to ability than to investigate and speculate the hows and whys, and any chemical reaction was believed to be a magical phenomenon. Impractical as they were, alchemists were as curious as any other great scientist.

From the most simplistic items to the life saving drugs have been discovered through the study of chemistry. The first ever discovery of science was made be Democritus in 440 BC when he proposed the concept of an atom to describe the indiscrete particles that were thought to compose all types of matter. Henceforth the study of chemistry continued and up till this day it is still in progress.

A breakthrough discovery in the world of chemistry was the development of penicillin (an antibiotic