A History of Chemistry – Part 1
Apr 29, 2020
Article
Chemistry – a natural science?
For a long time, chemistry was a discipline which lagged behind other natural sciences. The human desire for cheating death and overcoming poverty was just too strong for people to abandon the promises of alchemy and embark into the scientific study itself.
This article, which is the first in our four-part series on the history of chemistry, will explore how chemistry left behind the mysticism of alchemy.
The origins of chemistry
Humans have been fascinated with chemistry for thousands of years. The first use of chemical processes dates back to the fourth millennium BC and involved extracting metals from mineral ores. However, the shift from chemistry as a mere practical utility into a full-blown scientific debate with its many fields of enquiry happened much later. It wasn’t until the times of Ancient Greece that natural philosophers documented this kind of engagement with nature and the resulting attempts to explain the world as it appears to us.
For example, Democritus (ca. 460–371 BC) was concerned with the structure of matter. Like his mentor Leucippus, he was convinced that matter was composed of tiny, indivisible particles. It was Democritus himself who coined the term «atom», derived from the Greek word «átomos» (in English, «indivisible»).
Alchemy – a secret science
The theoretical principles of the Greek natural philosophers later gave way to alchemy, which, like the modern sciences, aimed at extracting knowledge about nature by conducting experiments.