The history of chemistry began more than 4,000 years ago with the Egyptians who pioneered the art of synthetic "wet" chemistry. By 1000 BC, the ancient civilizations were using technologies that would form the basis of the various branches of chemistry. Extracting metal from their ores, making pottery and glazes, fermenting beer and wine, making pigments for cosmetics and painting, extracting chemicals from plants for medicine and perfume, making cheese, dying cloth, tanning leather, rendering fat into soap, making glass, and making alloys like bronze.
Philosophical attempts to explain the nature of matter and its transformations failed. The protoscience of alchemy also failed, but by experimentation and recording the results set the stage for science. Modern chemistry begins to emerge when a clear distinction is made between chemistry and alchemy by Robert Boyle in his work The Sceptical Chymist (1661). Chemistry then becomes a full-fledged science when Antoine Lavoisier develops his law of conservation of mass, which demands careful measurements and quantitative observations of chemical phenomena. So, while both alchemy and chemistry are concerned with the nature of matter and its transformations, it is only the chemists who apply the scientific method. The history of chemistry is intertwined with the history of thermodynamics, especially through the work of Willard Gibbs.
1. From fire to atomism
Arguably the first chemical reaction that was used in a controlled manner by mankind was fire. However, for millennia, in absence of a scientific understanding, fire was simply a mystical force that could transform one substance into another (burn the wood, or boil the water) while producing heat and light. Fire affected many aspects of early societies, ranging from the most simple facets of everyday life, such as cooking and habitat lighting, to more advanced technologies, such as pottery, bricks, and smelting of metals to make tools.
Philosophical attempts to rationalize why different substances have different properties (color, density, smell), exist in different states (gaseous, liquid, and solid), and react in a different manner when exposed to environments, for example to water or fire or temperature changes, led ancient philosophers to postulate the first theories on nature and chemistry. The history of such philosophical theories that relate to chemistry, can probably be traced back to every single ancient civilization. The common aspect in all these theories was the attempt to identify a small number of primary elements that make up all the various substances in nature. Substances like air, water, and soil/earth, energy forms, such as fire and light, and more abstract concepts such as ideas, aether, and heaven, were common in ancient civilizations even in absence of any cross-fertilization; for example in Greek, Indian, Mayan, and ancient Chinese philosophies all considered air, water, earth and fire as primary element.
Atomism can be traced back to ancient Greece and ancient India. Greek atomism dates back to 440 BC, as what might be indicated by the book De Rerum Natura (The Nature of Things) written by the Roman Lucretius in 50 BC. In the book was found ideas traced back to Democritus and Leucippus, who declared that atoms were the most indivisible part of matter. This coincided with a similar declaration by Indian philosopher Kanad in his Vaisheshika sutras around the same time period. By similar means discussed the existence of gases. What Kanada declared by sutra, Democritus declared by philosophical musing. Both suffered from a lack of empirical data. Without scientific proof, the existence of atoms was easy to deny. Aristotle opposed the existence of atoms in 330 BC; and the atomism of the Vaisheshika school was also opposed for a long time.
Much of the early development of purification methods is described by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia. He made attempts to explain those methods, as well as making acute observations of the state of many minerals.
en.wikipedia.org
Philosophical attempts to explain the nature of matter and its transformations failed. The protoscience of alchemy also failed, but by experimentation and recording the results set the stage for science. Modern chemistry begins to emerge when a clear distinction is made between chemistry and alchemy by Robert Boyle in his work The Sceptical Chymist (1661). Chemistry then becomes a full-fledged science when Antoine Lavoisier develops his law of conservation of mass, which demands careful measurements and quantitative observations of chemical phenomena. So, while both alchemy and chemistry are concerned with the nature of matter and its transformations, it is only the chemists who apply the scientific method. The history of chemistry is intertwined with the history of thermodynamics, especially through the work of Willard Gibbs.
1. From fire to atomism
Arguably the first chemical reaction that was used in a controlled manner by mankind was fire. However, for millennia, in absence of a scientific understanding, fire was simply a mystical force that could transform one substance into another (burn the wood, or boil the water) while producing heat and light. Fire affected many aspects of early societies, ranging from the most simple facets of everyday life, such as cooking and habitat lighting, to more advanced technologies, such as pottery, bricks, and smelting of metals to make tools.
Philosophical attempts to rationalize why different substances have different properties (color, density, smell), exist in different states (gaseous, liquid, and solid), and react in a different manner when exposed to environments, for example to water or fire or temperature changes, led ancient philosophers to postulate the first theories on nature and chemistry. The history of such philosophical theories that relate to chemistry, can probably be traced back to every single ancient civilization. The common aspect in all these theories was the attempt to identify a small number of primary elements that make up all the various substances in nature. Substances like air, water, and soil/earth, energy forms, such as fire and light, and more abstract concepts such as ideas, aether, and heaven, were common in ancient civilizations even in absence of any cross-fertilization; for example in Greek, Indian, Mayan, and ancient Chinese philosophies all considered air, water, earth and fire as primary element.
Atomism can be traced back to ancient Greece and ancient India. Greek atomism dates back to 440 BC, as what might be indicated by the book De Rerum Natura (The Nature of Things) written by the Roman Lucretius in 50 BC. In the book was found ideas traced back to Democritus and Leucippus, who declared that atoms were the most indivisible part of matter. This coincided with a similar declaration by Indian philosopher Kanad in his Vaisheshika sutras around the same time period. By similar means discussed the existence of gases. What Kanada declared by sutra, Democritus declared by philosophical musing. Both suffered from a lack of empirical data. Without scientific proof, the existence of atoms was easy to deny. Aristotle opposed the existence of atoms in 330 BC; and the atomism of the Vaisheshika school was also opposed for a long time.
Much of the early development of purification methods is described by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia. He made attempts to explain those methods, as well as making acute observations of the state of many minerals.
en.wikipedia.org
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