Throughout the history of chemistry, one of the most basic things used to solve problems is a formula. Formulas are so fundamental in chemistry, and in other fields, that they were used before the periodic table was arranged and well before the elements we know now were discovered. Formulas have proven to be very useful and have drastically increased the speed at which problems can be solved. For example, Lavoisier, a natural philosopher, had much difficulty in making quantitative predictions to prove that in any reaction the mass of the reactants has to equal the mass of products. He was unable to calculate the number of pounds of salt needed to make a hundred pounds of soda. For this reason, thousands of numerical relationships needed to …show more content…
be worked out by trial and error. In retrospect, it is clear that this was necessary because Lavoisier did not know that he had to find the atomic and molecular weights and use them to create a molecular formula (Salzberg, 207).
Not knowing how to calculate the molecular formulas, and not even knowing what molecular formulas are for that matter, proved to be a challenging obstacle for Lavoisier to overcome. Once it was proved that compound atoms had fixed and definite compositions, the first molecular formulas emerged. Oddly, it was John Dalton, a physicist, who discovered the first molecular formulas (Salzberg, 209). Dalton did this by calculating atomic weights through selective interatomic repulsions, and from these repulsions he derived the first molecular formulas. Although it is odd that a physicist derived the formulas used in chemistry, this shows how empirical and molecular formulas have always been necessary in all the …show more content…
sciences. Molecular and empirical (stoichiometric) formulas are used to express the number of atom and elements in a compound. While these two types of formulas are very similar in their use in chemistry as well as how they are calculated, there are a few differences that are used to distinguish between them. An empirical formula is a formula that may or may not express how many atoms of a compound are in a compound. The purpose of this formula is to express the ratio between the numbers of atoms of each element in the compound. A molecular formula is different in that it clearly expresses the number of atoms of each element in a compound (Rogers). For example, the molecular formula of hydrogen peroxide is H2O2. However, the empirical formula would be HO, which is the ratio of the number of atoms present in the compound. In some cases, two different compounds may actually have the same empirical formulas. For instance, the molecular formula for ethylene is C2H4, and the molecular formula for butene is C4H8. Although they have different molecular formulas, they both have the same empirical formula, CH2. The main way in which these formulas are used in chemistry is to determine the percent composition of an element in a compound.
These formulas all show what elements are in a compound, and by dividing the mass of all the atoms of an element in a compound by the mass of the whole compound, the percent composition of that element can be determined. This process is the main reason these formulas are important in chemistry. Another reason they are important is that in some compounds with network structures, there are no discrete molecules. This means that the empirical formula is the only one used to describe substances such as diamonds. In physics, these formulas are used in a different way. Empirical formulas in this field are used not to derive chemical equations, but to predict observable results. The most well known formula that does this is the Rydberg Formula, discovered by Janne Rydberg (Martinson and Curtis). This formula predicts the wavelengths of hydrogen spectral lines and was used to perfectly predict the wavelengths of the Lyman series. This experiment was not understood, however, until Niels Bohr produced the Bohr model in
1913. The research I did for this report made me realize just how important empirical and molecular formulas are in all the sciences, not just chemistry. I was very interested to learn that some substances, such as diamonds, are only considered to have empirical formulas and not molecular formulas for the sake of redundancy. I also learned that the first molecular formulas were coined by a physicist, John Dalton, and not by a chemist as I had previously thought. What I found most interesting during my research was about the application of empirical formulas in physics. I was intrigued by the Rydberg formula and how empirical formulas are used in physics to predict results. Ultimately, I learned that although empirical and molecular formulas seem like they are straightforward and very basic, there is actually a lot more complexity behind these topics than meets the eye.
This chemistry book report is focus on a book called “Napoleon's buttons: How 17 molecules changed history” by Penny Le Couteur and Jay Burreson. The publisher of this book is Tarcher Putnam, the book was published in Canada on 2003 with 17 chapters (hey the number match the title of the book!) and a total of 378 pages. The genre of this book is nonfiction. “Napoleon's Buttons” contain a fascinating story of seventeen groups of molecules that have greatly changed the course of history and continuing affect the world we live in today. It also reveal the astonishing chemical connection among some unrelated events, for example: Chemistry caused New Amsterdamers to be renamed New Yorkers and one little accident of detonating cotton apron in a minor housekeeping mishap lead to the development of modern explosives and the founding of the movie industry.
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This showed that dissolved gases were mechanically mixed with the water and weren?t mixed naturally. But in 1803 it was found that this depended on the weight of the individual particles of the gas or atoms. By assuming the particles were the same size, Dalton was able to develop the idea of atomic weights. In 1803 this theory was finalised and stated that (1) all matter is made up of the smallest possible particles termed atoms, (2) atoms of a given element have unique characteristics and weight, and (3) three types of atoms exist: simple (elements), compound (simple molecules), and complex (complex molecules).
On April 1, 1855, he received his Bachelor’s Degree. Dmitri decided to keep a low-profile . A year later, on April 23, 1856 he received his Master’s Degree . Mendeleev decided to write a book called The Principles of Chemistry. He published it on August 1, 1861 . It was also presented here in a high school quality paperback edition . The publication was produced from a professional scan of an original edition of the book .
The calculation for formula, mass helps us to determine if you need to convert grams to a particular substance to moles, from a product. Moles are numbers that are in front of formulae. E.g., 6NaCl(aq), 6 is the mole for this compound. A mole would help you balance a skeleton equation, and also allows you to calculate how many moles are needed to take part in a chemical reaction.
The empirical formula of a compound shows the simplest ratio in which atoms of constituent elements of the compound are present in 1 molecule of the compound.
From the moment that I entered the Chemistry room at Windsor High School, I knew I was in trouble. That trouble came from realizing that almost every single Chemistry problem involved math, specifically math that required three to four equations along with written explanations about what the results meant. No matter how hard I tried on my homework and exams, I just could not understand how a problem could tell me that I needed the Ideal Gas Law as well as Faraday’s Law to know how many moles sodium chloride contained in one gram. My mind had trouble going along with the logic behind the math in Chemistry. The math in this class was not difficult; it was just confusing to know what steps must be taken to get the correct solution. In addition,
Sootin, Harry, and Gustav Schrotter.Robert Boyle : founder of modern chemistry. New York: F. Watts, 1962. Print.
Have you ever had a question about the History of Chemistry, because I just had one recently about the invention of Pepto-Bismol. This invention of Pepto-Bismol was a key invention to the society because this helped people cure their rare disease in the late nineteenth century that people called diarrhea. Today, I am going to take you on an adventure through time that was the late eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century and you will come to see that Pepto-Bismol was an amazing invention. Let’s start with the beginning stages of the creation of Pepto-Bismol.
Things are very different from each other, and can be broken down into small groups inside itself, which was then noticed early by people, and Greek thinkers, about 400BC. Which just happened to use words like "element', and `atom' to describe the many different parts and even the smallest parts of matter. These ideas were around for over 2000 years while ideas such as `Elements' of Earth, Fire, Air, and Water to explain `world stuff' came and went. Much later, Boyle, an experimenter like Galileo and Bacon, was influenced much by Democritus, Gassendi, and Descartes, which lent much important weight to the atomic theory of matter in the 1600s. Although it was Lavoisier who had divided the very few elements known in the 1700's into four different classes, and then John Dalton made atoms even more believable, telling everyone that the mass of an atom was it's most important property. Then in the early 1800's Dobereiner noted that the similar elements often had relative atomic masses, and DeChancourtois made a cylindrical table of elements to display the periodic reoccurrence of properties. Cannizaro then determined atomic weights for the 60 or so elements known in the 1860s, and then a table was arranged by Newlands, with the many elements given a serial number in order of their atomic weights, of course beginning with Hydrogen. That made it clear that "the eighth element, starting from a given one, is a kind of a repeat of the first", which Newlands called the Law of Octaves.
Stoichiometry is very used in our daily life, for example cooking. Just imagine that you really want cookies, but you are almost out of sugar, this is where stoichiometry pops in, you have to figure out how much of the other ingredients you will need compared to the amount of sugar that you have.
The development of quantum mechanics in the 1920's and 1930's has revolutionized our understanding of the chemical bond. It has allowed chemists to advance from the simple picture that covalent and ionic bonding affords to a more complex model based on molecular orbital theory.
Antoine Laurent Lavoisier is considered to be the father of modern-day chemistry (Balchin 36). He had an unbelievable impact on the way the world views chemistry today. From identifying elements to discovering the importance of the role of combustion, he played an essential part in the world’s scientific ideas and inventions. He was so influential that he is said to have an equal if not greater impact in chemistry as Newton did in physics (Tiner 90). He used the initial ideas of Joseph Priestley, Henry Cavendish, and Karl Scheele, and worked to prove them and make them more official (Tiner 90).
Dalton was the first person to develop a scientific atom theory, the ancient Greeks had ideas about the atom but could not prove it scientifically. Antoine Lavoisier and Dalton are responsible for the discovery of 90 natural elements. Dalton also explained the variations of water vapor in the atmosphere, the basis of meteorology. Dalton’s atomic theory says that each element contains its own number of atoms. Each element has its own size and weight.
The history of math has become an important study, from ancient to modern times it has been fundamental to advances in science, engineering, and philosophy. Mathematics started with counting. In Babylonia mathematics developed from 2000B.C. A place value notation system had evolved over a lengthy time with a number base of 60. Number problems were studied from at least 1700B.C. Systems of linear equations were studied in the context of solving number problems.