Big Ideas Simply Explained Dorling Kindersley The Chemistry Book DK Publishing 2022

HALF-TITLE
CONTENTS
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INTRODUCTION
PRACTICAL CHEMISTRY
	He who does not know beer, does not know what is good • Brewing
	Sweet oil, the fragrance of the gods • Purifying substances
	Fat from the ram, ashes from the fire • Making soap
	Dusky iron sleeps in dark abodes • Extracting metals from ores
	If it were not so breakable, I should prefer it to gold • Making glass
	Money is by nature gold and silver • Refining precious metals
	Atoms and the vacuum were the beginning of the universe • The atomic universe
	Fire and water and earth and the limitless vault of air • The four elements
THE AGE OF ALCHEMY
	The philosopher’s stone • Attempts to make gold
	The whole house burned down • Gunpowder
	The dose determines that a thing is not a poison • The new chemical medicine
	A far more subtile thing than a vapour • Gases
	I mean by elements …perfectly unmingled bodies • Corpuscles
	An instrument most potent, fire, flaming, fervid, hot • Phlogiston
ENLIGHTENMENT CHEMISTRY
	This particular kind of air … is deadly to all animals • Fixed air
	The gas went off with a pretty loud noise! • Inflammable air
	This air of exalted nature • Oxygen and the demise of phlogiston
	I have seized the light • Early photochemistry
	In all the operations of art and nature, nothing is created • Conservation of mass
	I dare speak of a new earth • Rare-earth elements
	Nature assigns fixed ratios • Compound proportions
	Chemistry without catalysis would be a sword without a handle • Catalysis
THE CHEMICAL REVOLUTION
	Each metal has a certain power • The first battery
	Attractive and repulsive forces suspend elective affinity • Isolating elements with electricity
	The relative weights of the ultimate particles • Dalton’s atomic theory
	Chemical signs ought to be letters • Chemical notation
	The same but different • Isomerism
	I can make urea without kidneys • The synthesis of urea
	The instantaneous union of sulfurous acid gas with oxygen • Sulfuric acid
	The quantity of matter decomposed is proportional to the quantity of electricity • Electrochemistry
	Air reduc’d to half its wonted extent, obtained twice as forcible a spring • The ideal gas law
	Any object may be copied by it • Photography
	Nature has made compounds which behave like elements themselves • Functional groups
	O, excellent air-bag! • Anaesthetics
THE INDUSTRIAL AGE
	That gas would give to our Earth a high temperature • The greenhouse effect
	Coal-derived blues • Synthetic dyes and pigments
	Powerful explosives have enabled wonderful work • Explosive chemistry
	To deduce the weight of atoms • Atomic weights
	Bright lines when brought into the flame • Flame spectroscopy
	Notation to indicate the chemical position of the atoms • Structural formulae
	One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail • Benzene
	A periodic repetition of properties • The periodic table
	The mutual attraction of the molecules • Intermolecular forces
	Left- and right-handed molecules • Stereoisomerism
	The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum • Why reactions happen
	Every salt, dissolved in water, is partly dissociated in acid and base • Acids and bases
	Change prompts an opposing reaction • Le Chatelier’s principle
	Heat-proof, shatter-proof, scratch-proof • Borosilicate glass
	The new atomic constellation • Coordination chemistry
	A glorious yellow effulgence • The noble gases
	The molecular weight shall henceforth be called mole • The mole
	Proteins responsible for the chemistry of life • Enzymes
	Carriers of negative electricity • The electron
THE MACHINE AGE
	Like light rays in the spectrum, the different components are resolved • Chromatography
	The new radio-active substance contains a new element • Radioactivity
	Molecules, like guitar strings, vibrate at specific frequencies • Infrared spectroscopy
	This material of a thousand purposes • Synthetic plastic
	The most measured chemical parameter • The pH scale
	Bread from air • Fertilizers
	The power to show unexpected and surprising structures • X-ray crystallography
	Gas for sale • Cracking crude oil
	The throat seized as by a strangler • Chemical warfare
	Their atoms have identical outsides but different insides • Isotopes
	Each line corresponds to a certain atomic weight • Mass spectrometry
	The biggest thing chemistry has done • Polymerization
	Development of motor fuels is essential • Leaded petrol
	Curly arrows are a convenient electron accounting tool • Depicting reaction mechanisms
	Shapes and variations in the structure of space • Improved atomic models
	Penicillin started as a chance observation • Antibiotics
	Out of the atom smasher • Synthetic elements
	Teflon touches every one of us almost every day • Nonstick polymers
	I will have nothing to do with a bomb! • Nuclear fission
	Chemistry depends upon quantum principles • Chemical bonding
THE NUCLEAR AGE
	We created isotopes that did not exist the day before • The transuranic elements
	Delicate motion that resides in ordinary things • Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy
	The origin of life is a relatively easy thing • The chemicals of life
	The language of the genes has a simple alphabet • The structure of DNA
	Chemistry in reverse • Retrosynthesis
	New compounds from molecular acrobatics • The contraceptive pill
	Living light • Green fluorescent protein
	Polymers that stop bullets • Super-strong polymers
	The whole structure spread out before one’s eyes • Protein crystallography
	The siren draw of miracle cures and magic bullets • Rational drug design
	This shield is fragile • The hole in the ozone layer
	Power to alter the nature of the world • Pesticides and herbicides
	If it blocks cell division, that’s good for cancer • Chemotherapy
	The hidden workhorses of the mobile era • Lithium ion batteries
	Beautifully precise copying machines • The polymerase chain reaction
	60 carbon atoms hit us in the face • Buckminsterfullerene
A CHANGING WORLD
	Build things one atom at a time • Carbon nanotubes
	Why not harness the evolutionary process to design proteins? • Customizing enzymes
	A negative emission is good • Carbon capture
	Biobased and biodegradable • Renewable plastics
	The magic of flat carbon • Two-dimensional materials
	Astonishing images of molecules • Atomic force microscopy
	A better tool to manipulate genes • Editing the genome
	We will know where matter ceases to be • Completing the periodic table?
	Humanity against the viruses • New vaccine technologies
DIRECTORY
GLOSSARY
QUOTE ATTRIBUTIONS
CONTRIBUTORS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
COPYRIGHT