Put it simply Chemistry is the study of matter and the way matter changes.

The word Chemistry comes from an ancient Egyptian word khemeia. Khemeia was an Egyptian art which occurs in various Egyptian groups that was connected to mummification. Later along the history, its practices included things such as dyeing, metallurgy and glass making.

Although the ancients knew of copper, silver, gold, tin, lead, iron, carbon and sulphur, they did not know that these are elements. To them, they follow the teachings of the 5th century BC Greek thinker and philosopher Empedocles and popularized by Aristotle. To them, matter was made up of four elements – the earth, air, fire and water. To them this classification made sense because after all, earth is not a solid, water is not a liquid, air not a gas and fire not an energy. Of course, to use people that study «Science» and call ourselves Scientists, that sentence does not make sense to us.

When Greek thinking encountered the Egyptian art of khemeia, probably during Alexandria about 300 BC, alchemy was born and it flourished for two thousand years. Alchemy combined mysticism and many general scientific experimentation. The alchemists became obsessed with the search of immortality and trying to turn any kind of metals into gold. They were the first to make general use of many of the chemicals we use today, such as strong acids – sulphuric acid, hydrochloric acid and nitric acid. They also developed many experimental procedure such as filtration, dissolution of solids and simple distillation.

The alchemists had built up a list of practical scientific information but they did not understand why things happened. Before our current understanding of chemistry, there are 3 more important concepts that were developed and followed:

1. Appreciation that scientific progress begins always with experiments and onservations
2. An understanding of what an element is – Robert Boyle and Antoine Lavoisier concluded the elements are the simplest unit that cannot be further broken down.
3. Development of the Atomic Theory – Greek philosopher Leucippus and Democritus proposed about this theory but was not successful. John Dalton is the one that came in to prove its existence.

And with that, the Russian Dmitri Mendeleev (1834 – 1907) came in to construct the world famous The Periodic Table which are recognised as the most important system of classification in Chemistry.

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