CHEM 6A Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Scientific Method, Measuring Instrument, Decimal Mark

• School: UCSD
• Department: Chemistry and Biochemistry
• Course: CHEM 6A
• Professor: Sandrine Berniolles

Document Summary

Chemistry: the study of the properties of substances and how they react with one another. Chemistry is everywhere, and the products of chemical reactions help us in our daily lives: plastics (about 50% of industrial chemists are involved with the development and production of plastics, computer chips, paper, fuels. All chemicals are built up from only about 100 different basic units called atoms. Chemistry is an experimental science based on the scientific method. Scientific method: the use of carefully controlled experiments to answer scientific questions: define goal/formulate the question we wish to answer, collect information or data about the subject under consideration. If the experiment supports the hypothesis, we perform further experiments to see whether the results are reproducible. If the hypothesis is supported by enough experimental observations obtained under a wide variety of conditions, they become scientific theories. Law of nature/scientific law: this summarizes the relationship between the phenomena under the same conditions but does not explain it.