In more formal terms chemistry is the study of matter and the changes it can undergo. Matter is anything that has mass and occupies space. Which is to say, anything you can touch or hold. Common usage might have us believe that ‘chemicals’ are just those substances in laboratories or something that is not a natural substance. Far from it, chemists believe that everything is made of chemicals.
Although there are countless types of matter all around us, this complexity is composed of various combinations of some 100 chemical elements. All matter is composed of various combinations of these basic elements. The wonder of chemistry is that when these basic particles are combined, they make something new and unique.
Understanding the basic properties of matter and learning how to predict and explain how they change when they react to form new substances is what chemistry and chemists are all about. Chemistry is not limited to beakers and laboratories. It is all around us, and the better we know chemistry, the better we know our world. Chemistry is everywhere, and we use it all the time in our daily lives, probably without knowing it.
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