History of chemistry – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The history of chemistry represents a time span from ancient history to the present. By 1000 BC, civilizations used technologies that would eventually form the basis to the various branches of chemistry. Examples include extracting metals from ores, making pottery and glazes, fermenting beer and wine, extracting chemicals from plants for medicine and perfume, rendering fat into soap, making glass, and making alloys like bronze.

The protoscience of chemistry, alchemy, was unsuccessful in explaining the nature of matter and its transformations. However, by performing experiments and recording the results, alchemists set the stage for modern chemistry. The distinction began to emerge when a clear differentiation was made between chemistry and alchemy by Robert Boyle in his work The Sceptical Chymist (1661). While both alchemy and chemistry are concerned with matter and its transformations, chemists are seen as applying scientific method to their work.

Chemistry is considered to have become an established science with the work of Antoine Lavoisier, who developed a law of conservation of mass that demanded careful measurement and quantitative observations of chemical phenomena. The history of chemistry is intertwined with the history of thermodynamics, especially through the work of Willard Gibbs.[1]

The earliest recorded metal employed by humans seems to be gold which can be found free or "native". Small amounts of natural gold have been found in Spanish caves used during the late Paleolithic period, c. 40,000 BC.[2]

Silver, copper, tin and meteoric iron can also be found native, allowing a limited amount of metalworking in ancient cultures.[3] Egyptian weapons made from meteoric iron in about 3000 BC were highly prized as "Daggers from Heaven".[4]

Arguably the first chemical reaction used in a controlled manner was fire. However, for millennia fire was seen simply as a mystical force that could transform one substance into another (burning wood, or boiling water) while producing heat and light. Fire affected many aspects of early societies. These ranged from the simplest facets of everyday life, such as cooking and habitat lighting, to more advanced technologies, such as pottery, bricks, and melting of metals to make tools.

It was fire that led to the discovery of glass and the purification of metals which in turn gave way to the rise of metallurgy.[citation needed] During the early stages of metallurgy, methods of purification of metals were sought, and gold, known in ancient Egypt as early as 2900 BC, became a precious metal.

Certain metals can be recovered from their ores by simply heating the rocks in a fire: notably tin, lead and (at a higher temperature) copper, a process known as smelting. The first evidence of this extractive metallurgy dates from the 5th and 6th millenniumBC, and was found in the archaeological sites of Majdanpek, Yarmovac and Plocnik, all three in Serbia. To date, the earliest copper smelting is found at the Belovode site,[5] these examples include a copper axe from 5500 BC belonging to the Vina culture.[6] Other signs of early metals are found from the third millenniumBC in places like Palmela (Portugal), Los Millares (Spain), and Stonehenge (United Kingdom). However, as often happens with the study of prehistoric times, the ultimate beginnings cannot be clearly defined and new discoveries are continuous and ongoing.

These first metals were single ones or as found. By combining copper and tin, a superior metal could be made, an alloy called bronze, a major technological shift which began the Bronze Age about 3500 BC. The Bronze Age was period in human cultural development when the most advanced metalworking (at least in systematic and widespread use) included techniques for smelting copper and tin from naturally occurring outcroppings of copper ores, and then smelting those ores to cast bronze. These naturally occurring ores typically included arsenic as a common impurity. Copper/tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact that there were no tin bronzes in western Asia before 3000 BC.

After the Bronze Age, the history of metallurgy was marked by armies seeking better weaponry. Countries in Eurasia prospered when they made the superior alloys, which, in turn, made better armor and better weapons.[citation needed] This often determined the outcomes of battles.[citation needed] Significant progress in metallurgy and alchemy was made in ancient India.[7]

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History of chemistry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia