What is Chemistry?

1. An alchemist recipe: (from "Chemistry" by Masterton, Slowinski, and Walford) "Take all the mineral salts there are, also all salts of animal and vegetable origin. Add all the metals and minerals, omitting none. Take two parts of the salts and grate in one part of the metals and minerals. Melt this in a crucible, forming a mass that reflects the essence of the world in all its colors. Pulverize this and pour vinegar over it. Pour off the red liquid into English wine bottles, filling them half-full. Seal them with the bladder of an ox (not that of a pig), Punch a hole in the top with a coarse needle. Put the bottles in hot sand for three months. Vapor will escape through the hole in the top, leaving a red powder, ..."
2. Why might it be hard to reproduce the alchemist's experiment as described above? Be specific.
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. What do you think of when you hear the word chemistry? What is chemistry?
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Chemistry (a definition): the study of substances using the scientific method to understand the relationship between what can be observed in experiments and the underlying atoms and molecules which are too small to be seen.