Chemistry is the science of matter and the changes it undergoes.

The science of matter is also addressed by physics, but while physics takes a more general and fundamental approach, chemistry is more specialized, being concerned with the composition, behavior, structure, and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergoes during chemical reactions. Chemistry is the study of interactions of chemical substances (a chemical substance is a material with a specific chemical composition. A common example of a chemical substance is pure water; it has the same properties and the same ratio of hydrogen to oxygen whether it is isolated from a river or made in a laboratory) with one another and energy.
Disciplines within chemistry are traditionally grouped by the type of matter being studied or the kind of study. These include inorganic chemistry, the study of inorganic matter; organic chemistry, the study of organic (carbon based) matter; biochemistry, the study of substances found in biological organisms; physical chemistry, the study of chemical processes using physical concepts such as thermodynamics and quantum mechanics; and analytical chemistry, the analysis of material samples to gain an understanding of their chemical composition and structure.

Matter:
Matter is everything around us. Matter is anything made of atoms and molecules. Matter is anything that has a mass. Matter is also related to light and electromagnetic radiation. Even though matter can be found all over the universe, we usually find it in just a few forms. As of 1995, scientists have identified five states of matter. We know about solids, liquids, gases, plasmas, and a new one called Bose-Einstein condensates. The first four have been around a long time. The scientists who worked with the Bose-Einstein condensate received a Nobel Prize for their work in 1995. But what makes a state of matter? It's about the physical state of molecules and atoms.

Solid
Solids are usually hard because their molecules have been packed together. The closer your molecules are, the harder you are. Solids also can hold their own shape. A rock will always look like a rock unless something happens to it. The same goes for a diamond. Even when you grind up a solid into a powder, you will see little tiny pieces of that solid under a microscope. Liquids will move and fill up any container. Solids like their shape. In the same way that a solid holds its shape, the atoms inside of a solid are not allowed to move around too much. This is one of the physical characteristics of solids.

Liquid:
Liquid is one of the three classical states of matter. Like a gas, a liquid is able to flow and take the shape of a container, but, like a solid, it resists compression. Unlike a gas, a liquid does not disperse to fill every

space of a container, and maintains a fairly constant density. Structure of a classical monatomic liquid atoms have many nearest neighbors in contact, yet no long-range order is present.

Gas:
Gas is everywhere. There is something called the atmosphere. That's a big layer of gas that surrounds the Earth. Gases are random groups of atoms. In solids, atoms and molecules are compact and close together. Liquids have atoms a little more spread out. However, gases are really spread out and the atoms and molecules are full of energy. They are bouncing around constantly. Gases can fill a container of any size or shape. That is one of their physical characteristics. Think about a balloon. No matter what shape you make the balloon it will be evenly filled with the gas atoms. The atoms and molecules are spread equally throughout the entire balloon. Liquids can only fill the bottom of the container while gases can fill it entirely

Changing States of Matter

All matter can move from one state to another. It may require very low temperatures or very high pressures, but it can be done. Phase changes happen when certain points are reached. Sometimes a liquid wants to become a solid. Scientists use something called a freezing point to measure when that liquid turns into a solid. There are physical effects that can change the freezing point. Pressure is one of those effects. When the pressure surrounding a substance goes up, the freezing point also goes up. That means it's easier to freeze the substance at higher pressures. When it gets colder, most solids shrink in size. There are a few which expand but most shrink. Now you're a solid. You're a cube of ice sitting on a counter. You dream of becoming liquid water. You need some energy. Atoms in a liquid have more energy than the atoms in a solid. The easiest energy

around is probably heat. There is a magic temperature for every substance called the melting point. When a solid reaches the temperature of its melting point it can become a liquid. For water the temperature has to be a little over zero degrees Celsius. If you were salt, sugar, or wood your melting point would be higher than water. The reverse is true if you are a gas. You need to lose some energy from your very excited gas atoms. The easy answer is to lower the surrounding temperature. When the temperature drops, energy will be sucked out of your gas atoms. When you reach the temperature of the condensation point, you become a liquid. If you were the steam of a boiling pot of water and you hit the wall, the wall would be so cool that you would quickly become a liquid. Finally, you're a gas. They are too cool!" You're already halfway there being a gas. You still need to tear off a bunch of electrons from your atoms. Eventually you'll have bunches of positively and negatively charged particles in almost equal concentrations. When the ions are in equal amounts, the charge of the entire plasma is close to neutral. (A whole bunch of positive particles will cancel out the charge of an equal bunch of negatively charged particles.) A plasma can be made from a gas if a lot of energy is pushed inside. All of this extra energy makes the neutral atoms break apart into positively and negatively charged ions and free electrons. They wind up in a big gaseous ball.

Atoms
If we want to have a language, we will need an alphabet. Other examples in chemistry are not any different. If you want to build molecules, you will need elements. Each element is a little bit different from the rest. Those elements are the alphabet to the language of molecules. Let's stretch the idea a bit. If we read a book, we will read a language. Letters make up that language. But what makes those letters possible? Ummm... Ink? Yes! we need ink to crate the letters. And for each letter, it is the same type of ink. Elements are like those letters. They have something in common. That's where atoms come in. All elements are made of atoms. While the atoms may have different weights and organization, they are all built in the same way. Electrons, protons, and neutrons make the universe go. An atom is the basic unit of chemistry. It consists of a positively charged core (the atomic nucleus) which contains protons and

neutrons, and which maintains a number of electrons to balance the positive charge in the nucleus. The atomic nucleus contains a mix of positively charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons (except in the case of hydrogen, which is the only stable nuclide with no neutrons). The electrons of an atom are bound to the nucleus by the electromagnetic force. Likewise, a group of atoms can remain bound to each other, forming a molecule. An atom containing an equal number of protons and electrons is electrically neutral; otherwise it has a positive or negative charge and is an ion. An atom is classified according to the number of protons and neutrons in its nucleus: the number of protons determines the chemical element, and the number of neutrons determines the isotope of the element.

Atomic Number:
The atomic number (also known as the proton number) is the number of protons found in the nucleus of an atom and therefore identical to the charge number of the nucleus. It is conventionally represented by the symbol Z. The atomic number uniquely identifies a chemical element. In an atom of neutral charge, the atomic number is also equal to the number of electrons.

Element:
The concept of chemical element is related to that of chemical substance. A chemical element is specifically a substance which is composed of a single type of atom. A chemical element is characterized by a particular number of protons in the nuclei of its atoms. This number is known as the atomic number of the element. For example, all atoms with 6 protons in their nuclei are atoms of the chemical element carbon, and all atoms with 92 protons in their nuclei are atoms of the element uranium. 94 different chemical elements or types of atoms based on the number of protons exist naturally. A further 18 have been recognized by IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) as existing artificially only. The most convenient presentation of the chemical elements is in the periodic table of the chemical elements, which groups elements by atomic number. Due to its ingenious arrangement, groups, or columns, and periods, or rows, of elements in the table either share several chemical properties, or follow a certain trend in characteristics such as atomic radius, electro negativity, etc. Lists of the elements by name, by symbol, and by atomic number are also available.

Substance
A chemical substance is a kind of matter with a definite composition and set of properties. Strictly speaking, a mixture of compounds, elements or compounds and elements is not a chemical substance, but it may be called a chemical. Most of the substances we encounter in our daily life are some kind of mixture; for example: air, alloys, biomass, etc. Nomenclature of substances is a critical part of the language of chemistry. Generally it refers to a system for naming chemical compounds. Earlier in the history of chemistry substances were given name by their discoverer, which often led to some confusion and difficulty. However, today the IUPAC system of

chemical nomenclature allows chemists to specify by name specific compounds amongst the vast variety of possible chemicals. The standard nomenclature of chemical substances is set by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). There are well-defined systems in place for naming chemical species. Organic compounds are named according to the organic nomenclature system. Inorganic compounds are named according to the inorganic nomenclature system. In addition the Chemical Abstracts Service has devised a method to index chemical substance. In this scheme each chemical substance is identifiable by a number known as CAS registry number.