1.2 Why is Chemistry Important?
Question: What Is the Importance of Chemistry?
What is the importance of chemistry? Why would you want to learn about chemistry? Chemistry is the study of
matter and its interactions with other matter and energy. Here's a look at the importance of chemistry and why
you should study it.
Answer: Chemistry has a reputation for being a complicated and boring science, but for the most part, that
reputation is undeserved. Fireworks and explosions are based on chemistry, so it's definitely not a boring science.
If you take classes in chemistry, you'll apply math and logic, which can make studying chemistry a challenge if you
are weak in those areas. However, anyone can understand the basics of how things work... and that's the study of
chemistry. In a nutshell, the importance of chemistry is that it explains the world around you.
Chemistry Explains...
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Cooking
Chemistry explains how food changes as you cook it, how it rots, how to preserve food, how your body
uses the food you eat, and how ingredients interact to make food.
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Cleaning
Part of the importance of chemistry is it explains how cleaning works. You use chemistry to help decide
what cleaner is best for dishes, laundry, yourself, and your home. You use chemistry when you use
bleaches and disinfectants and even ordinary soap and water. How do they work? That's chemistry!
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Medicine
You need to understand basic chemistry so you can understand how vitamins, supplements, and drugs
can help or harm you. Part of the importance of chemistry lies in developing and testing new medical
treatments and medicines.
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Environmental Issues
Chemistry is at the heart of environmental issues. What makes one chemical a nutrient and another
chemical a pollutant? How can you clean up the environment? What processes can produce the things
you need without harming the environment?
We're all chemists. We use chemicals every day and perform chemical reactions without thinking much about
them. Chemistry is important because everything you do is chemistry! Even your body is made of chemicals.
Chemical reactions occur when you breathe, eat, or just sit there reading. All matter is made of chemicals, so the
importance of chemistry is that it's the study of everything.
Importance of Taking Chemistry
Everyone can and should understand basic chemistry, but it may be important to take a course in chemistry or
even make a career out of it. It's important to understand chemistry if you are studying any of the sciences
because all of the sciences involve matter and the interactions between types of matter. Students wanting to
become doctors, nurses, physicists, nutritionists, geologists, pharmacists, and (of course) chemists all study
chemistry. You might want to make a career of chemistry because chemistry-related jobs are plentiful and highpaying. The importance of chemistry won't be diminished over time, so it will remain a promising career path.
What is Chemistry?
Chemistry is the study of the composition of matter and the changes that matter undergoes. At a more
fundamental level, it is the study of electrons and their relationship to the nucleus of an atom. There are
exceptions from this electron description but from a true basic viewpoint, this is chemistry.
Why do we need to know Chemistry?
It is everywhere around us and even within us. We use it on a daily basis, not even knowing its role in some cases.
Some examples:
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Cooking – “Never trust a chemist who doesn’t cook.” Cooking is chemistry, just with a special
vocabulary. E.g. The Maillard Reaction causes the browning of food and one of the reasons cooked food
tastes so good to so many people. Lipophilic and hydrophilic compounds are essential components of
foods such as Italian dressing. A great chef is simply an excellent chemist who might have a propensity to
wear funny hats.
Career – Many careers have chemistry as a vital component. Firefighters need to understand the
combustion reaction and reaction rates as a matter of life and death. Fashion design is another vocation
requiring chemistry, from inorganic/organic chemistry for the color of dyes to material chemistry relating
to the construction of a fabric and how it appears, hangs and cuts.
Medicine – Much of medicine is defined by chemistry. The role of iron in hemoglobin enables oxygen to
get to the cells and allow respiration to take place.
For the Voter – Even if you do not directly use chemistry on a daily basis, you will still be asked to make
decisions based on chemistry in one other critical place, the voting booth. You will be asked to either
make decisions or choose people to make decisions in several areas involving topics such as the
greenhouse effect/climate change, the ozone hole (not the same thing!), and decisions involving power
generation. Chemistry is one of many topics that should play an important role is these decisions.
Most Importantly,
Chemistry has at its heart, the Scientific Method. It is a style of thinking and approaching problems and I wish to
help teach this manner of thinking to you. Knowing facts and formulas is not the main goal of this class. Sure, we
need to know facts such as Na stands for sodium, Pb for lead and most carbonate compounds do not like to
dissolve in water but my real goal is to teach how chemistry works and how you can get it to work for you.