Alvin W. Orbaek

Inorganic chemistry deals with all the elements of the periodic table. For this reason it’s extremely useful for understanding the world around you — everything from the chemistry of interstellar space, planets, and our own environment here on planet Earth, to the way that Silicon Valley uses silicon to drive the information age forward.

The table is like a shelf that is used to organize all the elements found in nature, and some that are man-made even. It is useful because it arranges each element into a box, sort of like how you arrange your kitchen into hot spices, sweet spices, sugar, and flour, for example. So when you want to cook up a storm, you know where to get the ingredients necessary; you can think of the periodic table elements as nature’s list of ingredients.

Upon its discovery by French astronomer Pierre J. C. Janssen in 1868, helium was thought to exist on the sun, but not here on the earth. As he was observing a solar eclipse in India, Janssen noticed a bright yellow spectral line. The sun shines every day. Regardless of how far north or south you live on this planet, the sun can still reach you.

There are many words and terms that are specific to chemistry, in this case inorganic chemistry. Here is a list of some of the most common and most interesting terms you need to know. Born-Haber cycle: An important thermodynamic calculation that is used to quantify the energy involved in making ionic compounds.

Since the dawn of human kind, materials have played a pivotal role to our existence. The ability to make housing to fend off bad weather and wet conditions, for example, certainly made living much easier, but today these kinds of elementary supports are considered as staple parts of our everyday lives. The materials we use today are far different from what we used in the past.

Oxygen was discovered by Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele in 1772. He discovered that by heating mercuric oxide, a gas (later identified as oxygen) formed. Scheele called the gas "fire air" because it produced sparks as it came in contact with hot charcoal dust. This story starts with Plato and his ideas on the nature of matter.