1.1. What is Chemistry? http://www.ck12.org
gunpowder, the manufacture of glass and ceramics, leather tanning, and the production of inks, dyes, and paints.
Alchemists also made the first attempts at organizing and classifying substances so that they could better understand
their reactions and be able to predict the products of their experiments. This eventually led to the modern periodic
table, which you will learn about in a later chapter. Alchemy began to fully evolve into chemistry in the 17thcentury,
with a greater emphasis on rational thought and experimentation and less emphasis on spirituality and mysticism.
FIGURE 1.
This painting by Joseph Wright (1771) is
titled “The Alchymist, In Search of the
Philosopher’s Stone.”Pure and Applied Chemistry
The study of modern chemistry can be split into two categories, called pure chemistry and applied chemistry.
Chemists who study pure chemistry do research primarily to advance mankind’s understanding of chemistry.Pure
chemistryis concerned with a greater understanding of the theories behind how matter is changing in chemical
reactions. Pure chemists tend to be less concerned with direct applications of the research that they are doing. That
is not to say that pure chemistry can never lead to a real-world application but, rather, that a potential application is
not the primary motivation for doing the research in the first place.Applied chemistryis chemistry that is directed
toward a specific practical goal or application.
The line between pure chemistry and applied chemistry is not always distinct. For example, in the early 1960s,