Chemistry - It's Elemental, Watson! What Really Makes Our World!

Chemistry has two very broad areas of study:

• Inorganic Chemistry--the study of the elements and how they interact. Deals mostly with the metals and the inert elements (Inert elements don't react much with any other elements).


• Organic Chemistry--the study of carbon-based compounds. These are the chemicals of life, the chemicals that exist in all living things.

Some folks like the inorganic chemistry--they are comfortable with the basics of chemistry--studying the electrons, protons, neutrons (the components or parts of an atom). These are the folks who study electrical conduction, solar photovoltaic electricity generation, and the basics of chemical reactions.

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Other folks like organic chemistry--the exoticness of the chemical formulae, the beauty of the molecules, how the chemistry relates more directly to our lives--because it's how our bodies work, how we digest our food, how we turn our food into the energy that enables us to get up in the morning. And, the chemistry of our food! The chemistry of our environment!

There are other subsets of studies in chemistry--qualitative analysis, quantitative analysis, physical chemistry, and other more obscure studies.

The "building blocks" of chemistry (at least when I was in high school--maybe they are working with muons and quarks now ) are the atoms. Atoms of each element are the smallest part of that element that can exist before it no longer has the characteristics of that element.

Yes, you can take an electron out of an atom. Maybe two or three. But the instance you do that, you no longer have the exact same characteristics for that atom, and thus, you have a different element (called an "isotope").

Each element has a different kind of atom. Each atom of an element has its own "atomic weight" and "atomic number" based on the number of electrons (negative charge), protons (positive charge), and neutrons (neutral charge) in its structure. The protons and neutrons make up the "nucleus" of an atom. The electrons "orbit" in a sort of "cloud" around the nucleus. This cloud of electrons in varying layers of orbits (called "shells") can be totally full of a unique number of electrons that "fit" that shell (rendering the atom to be an "inert" element--it won't react with other elements). Or, the shell may be relatively "empty" and have "room" for other electrons (which results in the atom being readily able to "react" with other atoms).

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Certain endings to chemical names give you a clue on what kind of chemical you are seeing described:

• -ose--You've got a type of sugar here (Sucrose, Glucose, Fructose, Lactose, and so on)


• -ol--This is a type of alcohol (Methanol, Ethanol, Propanol, Butanol, and so on)


• -ate--A type of salt (Monosodium Glutamate, Sodium Benzoate, Sodium Palmitate, and so on)


• -ine--A type of amino acid (Glutamine, Adenosine, Glycine, and so on)


• -ane--A type of hydrocarbon (hydrogen-carbon compound with single links only) (methane, ethane, butane, propane, heptane, hexane, octane, and so on)

There are others, but these are some of the main "suffixes".

Here are some of the "prefixes":

• mono---means "one"


• di---means "two"


• tri---means "three"


• quater---means "four"


• penta---means "five"


• hexa---means "six"


and so on...


Such that "hexane" means a hydrocarbon chain with 6 carbon atoms. "Dihydrogen monoxide" means two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. And it gets more complicated with more complex chemical compounds.

For more information on the "language of chemistry"--something called "Chemical Nomenclature", check out some of the great references listed on this Squidoo!