The history of chemistry

A super microscope that allows you to see how molecules move in your muscles. Pharmaceuticals that change how the body's cells work. Or research that gives us the cure for cancer. These are examples of modern chemistry that have been rewarded with the Nobel Prize in recent years. But it all started a long, long time ago.

Perhaps it looked... like this, when people tried CHEMISTRY for the first time. Grilled meat isn't just more tasty than raw meat. It's easier to chew, and it keeps longer. That is due to chemical reactions in the meat, triggered by the heat from the fire.

Thousands of years ago, we noticed what happened when a dough, made of flour and water was left sitting around a while. Tiny fungi and bacteria in the dough ate the flour and let off carbon dioxide - the dough fermented. Bread treated like this was both tastier and healthy. And it kept longer. Yet today, bread is fermented with almost the same methods.

The first professional chemists appeared five thousand years ago. In Egypt, priests made sure that the corpses of wealthy people didn't rot. They coated them in salt and spices that dehydrated the bodies and prevented attack from bacteria. People thought that the dead would someday regain life, and so the bodies needed to be as well preserved as possible. Today we use salt and spices to preserve fish and meat.

Two thousand years ago, in the Egyptian city Alexandria, a chemist called Maria was working. She tried to create new substances by mixing others. It was many people's dream to create GOLD. Imagine how rich you could become! We usually call the gold creators of that time alchemists - to distinguish them from the chemists of today.

Actually, both the words 'chemistry' and 'alchemy' derive from the Arabic word al-kimia. Why did none of the alchemists become super rich? Simple! Because you can't create gold from a concoction of other substances. Or, well, that isn't completely true...

There were alchemists who found out that gold dissolves in mercury. This makes an ugly grey paste - amalgam. The amalgam can be heated so that the mercury evaporates. What's left is - PURE GOLD. Of course, this is just the gold the alchemist put there in the first place...

But some greedy king or another was deceived, and bought this false formula for enormous amounts of money. Meanwhile the con man quickly fled abroad! Left behind was the equipment the alchemist had used to evaporate the mercury - the distiller. Which in fact is still used today in chemical laboratories! It wasn't until the end of the 18th century that modern chemistry was born.

Then, we began to understand that everything is built up from elements. In France - Antoine Lavoisier - set fire to a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen, and POOF! - it turned into water. That was simple proof that water is a compound of the elements hydrogen and oxygen. Later on, chemistry was developed into a proper science: In the middle of the 19th century, the Russian Dimitri Mendeleev discovered that the atoms of all the elements vary in weight. He organised the elements into a table which we still use - the periodic system.

The next stage in development occurred when chemists got into the nucleus of the atom. Marie Curie researched radioactivity in the beginning of the 20th century - her discoveries led to the X-ray machine. She was awarded the Nobel Prize TWICE - in physics and chemistry. In the middle of the 20th century, scientists discovered the thing that controls how the cells in your body are built. It is a huge molecule, called DNA.

Knowledge of this can help prevent diseases like cancer and many hereditary conditions. Jenny, if you were a chemist, what would you like to work on? I want to help doctors eliminate diseases! And find new environmentally friendly materials. I am going to invent a pill that will give my rabbit super powers!