the.com/chemistry
the universe's only language, written entirely in electrons borrowing and stealing from each other
means The science of matter — what substances are made of, how they bond, react, and transform into other substances.
from From 'alchemy,' the medieval pursuit of turning base metals into gold, which dropped its 'al-' prefix to become 'chemistry' by the 17th century. 'Alchemy' came through Old French and Latin from Arabic 'al-kimiya,' where 'al-' is simply 'the' and 'kimiya' is the art of transformation — itself possibly borrowed from Greek 'khemeia,' the art of metal-working. One charming theory ties it to 'Khem,' an ancient name for Egypt (the 'black land' of the Nile), making chemistry literally 'the Egyptian art' — but this link is uncertain and may be folk reasoning after the fact.
- the spark
- all chemical bonds are just electrons getting shared or snatched
- empty matter
- atoms are 99.9999 percent empty space
- named element
- only one element is named after a living person
- liquid metal
- mercury stays liquid at room temperature, defying its kin
- explosive gold
- gold dissolves only in a king-named acid mix
haber-bosch process — synthesizes ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen, produces fertilizer for ~50% of world population
discovery of penicillin — alexander fleming's 1928 observation of mold killing bacteria, revolutionized medicine
periodic table of elements — dmitri mendeleev's 1869 organization of 63 known elements by atomic weight and properties