History of Chemistry

By FatalAgent
  • Period: 460 BCE to 370 BCE

    Democritus

    Atoms were discovered under the name Atomos, the smallest particle of matter.
  • Period: 384 BCE to 322 BCE

    Aristotle

    Believed in earth, wind, fire, and water as the only four elements.
  • Period: 300 BCE to 500

    Alchemy 1

    Alexander the Great of Greece had overrun Egypt. Greek scientists merged with egyptian religion to ultimately form Alchemy.
  • Period: 600 to 700

    Alchemy 2

    Arabs in Egypt carried the scientific ideas to Spain, establishing gold as the perfect metal. Gold became known as the philosophers stone. Alchemists sought for spiritual purification and immortality.
  • Period: 1500 to

    Alchemy 3

    Western alchemists focused on exploring new chemical processes and elements, inventing extraction, distillation, percolation, and other scientific processes. The other group focused on searching for immortality through gold.
  • Period: to

    Vitalism

    Living things cintain a spirit of existence, differing them from abiotic things and further classifying them into kingdoms.
  • Period: to

    Thw Phlogiston Theory

    Fire was discovered to burn off a certain substance (oxygen) and the released product was a seperate gas (CO2). Seperate combustible bodies were extracted as a fire burned.
  • Period: to

    History of Chemistry

  • Starlight

    James Bradley uses the starlight to consistently measure the speed of light accurately within 5%.

  • Electric Battery

    A. Volta invented the elecric battery, which is now an everyday item in nearly every household.
  • Period: to

    Anton La Voisier

    Known as the father of modern chemistry. He got conclusions through quantitative info. He also discovered that oxygen causes combustion. He also said that matter can change in form, but cannot be created or destroyed.

  • Electrical Charges

    Ben Franklin discovered that there are positive and negative charges of electricity.

  • Law of Definite Proportions

    The Law of Definite Proportions, by Joseph Proust, defines that a compound always has the same proportional mass.

  • Discovery of electricity

    Benjamin Franklin discovers that lightning is electric by tying a key to a kite string.
  • Period: to

    John Dalton - Father of Atomic Theory

    A. Matter is made up of atoms that are indivisible and indestructible.
    B. All atoms of an element are identical. (False, isotopes!)
    C. Atoms of different elements have different weights and different
    chemical properties.
    D. Atoms of different elements combine in simple whole numbers to
    form compounds.
    E. Atoms cannot be created or destroyed. When a compound
    decomposes, the atoms are recovered unchanged.

  • Discovery of Oxygen, carbon monoxide, and nitrus oxide.

    Joseph Priestly discovers the substances of oxygen (the air we breathe), carbon monoxide (a harmful gas) and nitrus oxide (laughing gas).

  • Discovery of heat as energy

    Count Rumford discovered that heat is a form of energy.

  • The Electromagnet

    William Sturgeon invented the first ever Electromagnet in 1823.

  • Synthesis of an organic compound

    F. Wohler synthesized urea in 1828.

  • Invention of Kelvin

    Lord Kelvin created the Kelvin scale by discovering the absolute zero point of temperature.

  • Use of antiseptics in surgery

    The first use of antiseptics such as carbolic acids were performed by Joseph Lister. (Listerine?)

  • Invention of Dynamite

    Alfred Nobel invented dynamite and blasting powder in the 1860s.
  • Period: to

    William Crookes

    Invented CRT: painted glass tube that detecta radiation
    Paddle wheel in CRT: proved the Cathode ray has mass by turning it.

  • Establishment of Periodic Table

    Dmitri Mendeléev created the Periodic Table in 1869; arranging the elements in 7 groups.

  • CRT

    John Thomson found that a cathode ray deflects from a negative plate and toward a positive one, concluding that the cathode ray was made of negative particles since opposites attract.
  • Period: to

    Ernest Rutherford 1

    Used alpha radiation charges to detect radiation through gold foil, coated with paint. Light passes through gold foil and causes paint to glow.

  • Becquerel

    Uranium ore was discovered to be radioactive.

  • Radioactivity Discovered

    Pierre and Marie Curie discovered polonium and radium, and further studied the radioactivity of these elements.
  • Period: to

    Ernest Rutherford 2

    Continued his explorations of radioactivity.

  • Milikan

    Found the negative charge and mass of an electron.

  • Discovery of the Neutron

    James Chadwick discovered a particle with no electrical charge and identified it as the neutron.

  • Discovery of Nitrogen

    The “Father of Chemistry”, A.L. Lavoisier, discovered Nitrogen. He alao discovered the composition of other organic compounds.