Historical Background of Chemistry, Matter and Its Properties

35 vocabulary flashcards summarizing key historical figures, laboratory disciplines, fundamental concepts of chemistry, and properties and classifications of matter.

Empedocles

Greek philosopher who proposed that all matter is composed of four basic elements—earth, air, water, and fire.

Aristotle

Ancient Greek thinker who described matter in terms of four qualities—hot, cold, wet, and dry—that combine to form substances.

Alchemy

Early practice combining philosophy, metallurgy, and medicine, focusing on transmutation of metals and creation of medical concoctions.

Jabir ibn Hayyan

Islamic Golden Age scholar who introduced laboratory techniques such as distillation and crystallization, foundational to drug preparation.

Al-Razi (Rhazes)

Persian physician who wrote medical texts detailing chemical compounds for treating diseases; regarded as an early pharmaceutical chemist.

Paracelsus

Renaissance physician called the father of toxicology; introduced chemical use in medicine and stated that "the dose makes the poison."

Dmitri Mendeleev

Russian chemist who organized the known elements into the first widely accepted periodic table.

Atomic Theory

Scientific concept that matter is composed of discrete units called atoms, refined through 20th-century advances.

Chemistry

Central science studying the composition, structure, properties, and changes of matter and the energy involved in those changes.

Clinical Chemistry

Laboratory discipline analyzing body fluids for substances such as glucose, electrolytes, enzymes, and hormones to aid diagnosis.

Biochemistry

Branch of chemistry examining chemical processes in living organisms, including metabolism, enzyme kinetics, and acid–base balance.

Analytical Chemistry

Field focused on precise measurement of substances using spectrophotometry, chromatography, electrophoresis, titration, and related techniques.

Pharmaceutical Chemistry

Application of organic and inorganic chemistry to understand drug interactions, blood drug levels, and poison detection.

Matter

Anything that occupies space and has mass.

Particle Theory of Matter

Concept that all matter is made of tiny particles; particles of a pure substance are identical and differ from those of other substances.

Physical Property

Characteristic observable without altering chemical identity, e.g., mass, volume, density, color, melting point.

Chemical Property

Characteristic describing a substance’s ability to change into a new substance, such as flammability or reactivity.

Extensive Property

Physical property that depends on the amount of matter present, such as mass or volume.

Intensive Property

Physical property independent of the amount of substance, such as density or color.

Density

Intensive physical property defined as mass per unit volume of a substance.

Solubility

Physical property describing a substance’s ability to dissolve in another substance.

Malleability

Physical property allowing a substance to be rolled or hammered into thin sheets.

Magnetic Attraction

Physical property where a metal can attract another metal due to magnetic forces.

Luster

Physical property describing how a substance reflects light, giving it shine.

Melting Point

Temperature at which a substance changes from solid to liquid.

Boiling Point

Temperature at which a substance changes from liquid to gas.

State of Matter

Physical form in which matter exists—solid, liquid, gas, plasma, Bose-Einstein condensate, or fermionic condensate.

Plasma

Ionized gas consisting of charged particles; considered a distinct state of matter.

Bose-Einstein Condensate

Super-cooled state of matter formed near absolute zero where atoms coalesce into a single quantum entity.

Fermionic Condensate

Superfluid state of matter occurring at extremely low temperatures with paired fermions.

Flammability

Chemical property describing a substance’s ability to burn in the presence of oxygen.

Reactivity

Chemical property indicating how readily a substance interacts with others to form new substances.

Pure Substance

Matter with fixed composition and distinct properties; includes elements and compounds.

Element

Simplest form of matter containing only one type of atom; cannot be broken down by chemical means.

Compound

Substance composed of two or more elements chemically combined in a fixed proportion; separable only by chemical methods.

Mixture

Physical blend of two or more components, each retaining its own identity and properties.