Chemistry Basics I
It’s been over 20 years since I last studied chemistry. I started reading General Chemistry: Atoms First. It has an introductory chapter 0 that goes over concepts like fundamental units and conversion between units. A mention of the amount of volcanic material ejected into the atmosphere by the Krakatoa volcanic erruption piqued my curiosity enough to watch this History channel video.
Digging into chapter one opened my eyes to the fascinating journey of many scientists through the centuries trying to understand the world, and more specifically, elements. Accounting for the similarities between many of the elements was an undertaking that got a breakthrough in Dmitri Mendeleev’s periodic table as explained in the next video.
Reading about the isolation of oxygen from mercury oxide by Joseph Priestley made me curious about how this was done. Thankfully, there are many informative videos on these topics. Here’s one on the isolation of oxygen.
This video has left me wondering where HgO came from – was it a compound they used for something else?
- Antoine Lavoisier soon afterwards demonstrated the law of mass conservation.
- Joseph Proust followed with the law of definite proportions.
- John Dalton capped off the line of inquiry with the law of multiple proportions.
Searching for Joseph Proust on YouTube leads me to this interesting video with some of this history.
I wish I had all these videos as a tool when I was learning chemistry years ago.
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