Chemistry lies at the heart of our efforts to produce new materials that makes our lives safer and easier, to make new sources of energy that are abundant and nonpolluting, and to understand and control the many diseases that threaten us and our food supplies.
One of the best fields in the chemical science is environmental chemistry, an area that involves studying our environmental ills and finding creative ways to address them.
chemistry: the science that deals with the materials of the universe and the changes that these materials undergo
Steps to solve everyday problems:
Examine the problem and state it clearly.
Propose possible solutions to the problem or possible explanations for the observation.
Decide which of the solutions is the best or whether the explanation is reasonable.
scientific method: process that lies at the center of scientific inquiry
Steps in the scientific method:
State the problem and collect data. Observations may be qualitative (the desk is smooth) or quantitative (there are four desks in a row).
Formulate hypotheses.
Perform experiments.
theory: "model"; set of tested hypotheses that gives overall explanation of some part of nature