Outline of Chemistry - Nature of Chemistry

Nature of Chemistry

Chemistry can be described as all of the following:

  • An academic discipline: one with academic departments, curricula and degrees; national and international societies; and specialized journals.
  • A scientific field (a branch of science) – widely-recognized category of specialized expertise within science, and typically embodies its own terminology and nomenclature. Such a field will usually be represented by one or more scientific journals, where peer reviewed research is published. There are several geophysics-related scientific journals.
    • A natural science – one that seeks to elucidate the rules that govern the natural world using empirical and scientific method.
      • A physical science – one that studies non-living systems.
      • A biological science – one that studies the role of chemicals and chemical processes in living organisms. See Outline of biochemistry.

Read more about this topic:  Outline Of Chemistry

Famous quotes containing the words nature of, nature and/or chemistry:

    The most evident difference between man and animals is this: the beast, in as much as it is largely motivated by the senses and with little perception of the past or future, lives only for the present. But man, because he is endowed with reason by which he is able to perceive relationships, sees the causes of things, understands the reciprocal nature of cause and effect, makes analogies, easily surveys the whole course of his life, and makes the necessary preparations for its conduct.
    Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)

    We have no participation in Being, because all human nature is ever midway between being born and dying, giving off only a vague image and shadow of itself, and a weak and uncertain opinion. And if you chance to fix your thoughts on trying to grasp its essence, it would be neither more nor less than if your tried to clutch water.
    Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)

    Science with its retorts would have put me to sleep; it was the opportunity to be ignorant that I improved. It suggested to me that there was something to be seen if one had eyes. It made a believer of me more than before. I believed that the woods were not tenantless, but choke-full of honest spirits as good as myself any day,—not an empty chamber, in which chemistry was left to work alone, but an inhabited house,—and for a few moments I enjoyed fellowship with them.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)