Welcome to ChemistryIsMyJam.com.
My name is Rebecca and I believe that Chemistry
can be your jam too.
This is unit one: Science and Measurement.
This unit introduces the concept of chemistry,
discusses the scientific method, reviews the
metric system, discusses measurement, and
classifies matter.
Let’s get started.
So what is this thing that we call science?
Science is our effort to understand the world
around us.
A scientist is not ok with knowing that something
happens.
They want to know why it happens.
In order to do this, we depend on observations,
experiments, and measurements to make predictions
about our world.
Science is dynamic.
It is constantly changing.
Our understanding of the world is constantly
changing as technology improves and new ideas
are formed.
Chemistry is the area of science that tries
to explain how atoms interact with one another.
A chemist may try to determine what atoms
are present in a certain molecule, like in
forensics for example.
A chemist may try to determine what molecules
need to be combined in order to produce a
certain pharmaceutical product.
Or, a chemist could study the environmental
impact of an industrial complex.
Chemists make all kinds of contributions to
our world.
One thing you should understand is that chemistry
is an experimental science.
A chemist can’t look through a microscope
and watch a reaction take place.
They depend on experiments, observations,
and they follow the scientific method to try
to explain what is going on.
The scientific method is a series of steps
that scientists go through in order to answer
a problem.
The first thing that a scientist does is identify
what it is that they are trying to solve.
They identify the problem.
Then they do some background research.
They go look in scientific journals and see
what other researchers have already determined
about their problem.
Based on the background research, they can
form a hypothesis.
They can design an experiment that will test
their hypothesis, analyze the data from their
experiment, and then form a conclusion.
The conclusion should refer back to the hypothesis.
They could say “Yes, my hypothesis is correct
and I’m going to rerun the experiment to
make sure that it is consistently correct.”
Or, “No, my hypothesis was wrong.
I’m going to change it and design a new
experiment to test my new hypothesis.
The scientific method can be applied to things
in your everyday life.
Suppose, for example, that you are a runner
who wants to improve your time in a 5K race.
You identify your problem as “What will
be the effect of interval training on my 5K
race time?”
You do some background research and find that
many coaches recommend interval training.
Your hypothesis is “Interval training will
improve my 5K race time.”
You test your hypothesis by interval training
for several weeks and then participating in
a 5K race.
You analyze the data and find out that your
time did in fact improve.
So your conclusion would be that interval
training had a positive effect on your 5K
race time.
Consider another, more scientific example.
Suppose you are an engineer working on an
industrial site, and you have been tasked
with finding ways to improve the environmental
impact of your process.
So your problem is “How can I reduce the
amount of carbon dioxide emissions coming
from the smokestacks on our site?”
You do some background research and find a
chemical that in most cases reduces carbon
dioxide emissions.
You form a hypothesis that switching to this
chemical will reduce your carbon dioxide emissions.
You set up a chemical trial where your industrial
site uses the new chemical.
You analyze the data and find out that in
your case, your carbon dioxide emissions did
not improve.
So your conclusion would be that your hypothesis,
in this case, was wrong.
You would want to go back, do more background
research, form a new hypothesis possibly with
a different chemical, and test the hypothesis
again.
You would keep running through the scientific
method until you found something that worked
well, consistently.
Once you find something that works consistently,
so that would be a correct hypothesis that
has been through repeated testing, then you
would be ready to call that a scientific theory.
So a scientific theory is a correct hypothesis
that has been through repeated testing.
Theories are much more common that scientific
laws.
A scientific law must always be true under
the given conditions.
Some examples of scientific laws are the law
of gravity, the law of conservation of mass,
the laws of thermodynamics, and the ideal
gas law.
There are often mathematical statements associated
with scientific laws and that’s not always
the case with scientific theories.
In this video, we’ve introduced the concept
of chemistry and started discussing the scientific
method.
Stick around as we continue the scientific
method by discussing types of variables.
