The history of chemistry involves a journey from its magical and mythological origin to the highly complex and analytical science that it is today. Chemistry, the science which explains the composition of matter and the changes that different forms of matter undergo, did not gain much momentum until the seventeenth century. Prior to the 1600's, the study of chemistry languished in a pre scientific period, suffering from some prominent misconceptions and untenable theories. Advances made in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have brought chemistry to such an advanced state that we are able to examine the composition of material on an atomic, and even a sub atomic level.
Beginning with the use of fire, humans have observed the transformation of matter. Fire burns wood to produce ash, and meat becomes cooked over flame. These changes, known to primitive humans, were part of daily survival. As civilization developed in China, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, artisans performed further transformations to produce a variety of dyes, medicines, glasses, perfumes, and metals.
The Greeks regarded change as a universal phenomenon, but paid little attention to actual chemical processes; depending purely on speculation, they gave little experimental evidence for their conclusions regarding matter. Aristotle, in the 4th century BC, did come so far as to propose the existence of a primeval matter and four qualities: heat, cold, wetness, and dryness. The mythological gods used the "elements" as they saw fit. Alchemy, the next major phase of the history of chemistry, developed in Alexandria, Egypt, and combined aspects of Greek mythology, Oriental artisanship, and religious mysticism. In early Christian times, alchemists set out to make gold out of non precious metal. Many little understood observations in early metallurgy seemed to support such a transmutation. As Isaac Asimov, author of A Short History of Chemistry, points out in his...