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Chemistry - Greatest Discoveries

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for us life unfolds on human scales miles feet inches what's the surface of things is another realm a billion times smaller than we are a dimension that holds the secrets to understanding our world what makes steel strong why ice cream is delicious life possible secrets that help us create what we imagine the human creativity of chemistry there's just nothing more beautiful than that this is the realm of chemistry these are its greatest discoveries ancient Greek philosophers believed they were just four elements earth air fire and water and the air was the underlying element a single substance responsible for the makeup of everything in the world centuries Leonardo da Vinci was among the first to suggest that instead of being an element air might consist of two different gases it remained until our first great discovery England the latter part of the 18th century clergyman and sometimes scientists Joseph Priestley conducted a series of experiments I'm for new airs what today we call gases  to find out more about what we was up to I paid a visit to Arnold president and the story in that the chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia Pennsylvania and wrote on every subject that you have a thought of he wrote about history he wrote about religion he wrote about politics science Priestly was the man who knew everything he would tell you that he cranks yourself hit the history of it the theory of it and he was quite literally the man who ever but along with everything else Priestly did this famous experiment right that's exactly correct and there are two things that go into that experiment the one is Mercury strange substance that symbol taneously liquid and metal and that's just crazy I mean whoever heard her liquid metal and so it was really hustling what is this thing on people with fascinated by it and so they wanted to explore its and of course the other thing that went into it was the technology to deal with gases and here in creaseless experiments and observations on different kinds of that we have the tech vology off collecting gases over liquids in tubes that you can see through so you can see the gas you can see what's happening to the gas and now you really are in business what Priestly does is he takes a burning glass beginning heat Allen's he focuses his on this Range Powder the mccarrick talks he hates it changes into this metal military and against comes the Priestly doesn't really realize what it is that he's found the answer would emerge in 1774 after pre sleep aid is it to Paris and shared the story of his Discovery with another scientist Antoine Lavoisier  Paris is a marvelous place for Priestley 2 because I'm telling the weather is in Paris Talk of the Town doing the work that will end up as his Elementary text chemistry and Love Wesley who is also mucking about with gases his what priest is done is fascinated by the report what's this new app decides he'll repeat the experiment he has lots of apparatus better apparatus he's meticulous experimenter and among other things ways things Lavoisier by weighing says something is being admitted he calls the thing emitted oxygen rewrites the whole script of chemistry and he creates a list of elements that we still use today oxygen hydrogen sulfur you can correctly say that Priestley discovered oxygen but love was he a invented it so with crystals experimental work gas with the discovery of oxygen with lavoisier's articulation of a system of language we have the whole conceptual scheme in which 18 century academic work is built 20th century industrial Innovation we have Pharmaceuticals we have biotechnology we have cell phones Plastics that's exactly right on all these things begin with the discovery of oxygen that's where it stops that's a lot to breathe in in the early 19th century British will teacher named John Dalton was hard at work pursuing his fascination with chemistry which would lead to our next great discovery Dalton's experiment showed that the known elements such as oxygen hydrogen and carbon combined in definite and constant proportions from his calculations he hypothesize that the elements must be made up of smaller invisible pieces of matter with relative in distinctive weights he called these pieces of matter atoms so what did Dalton discover Dalton was great play was what he called the relative weights of ultimate particles ultimate particle that's what he called it later on when he went make it becomes Atomic weights and we know it is atomic weights but it was Ultimate particle so he use the word Adams he use the word atoms to the idea of an atom goes back to Democritus the problem is it's nydia is it any news and Dalton was the man who made the idea useful that was his wake contribution from his work Dalton developed what came to be known as his atomic theory a revolutionary new system that defined the relationship atoms and the elements and it's an enormously simple system in Dalton things very simply very visually here are the elements are there weights of the elements here to the complex molecules and it's active system that connects the thing that famous canoe racings and balances with the things that you can't see the ultimate world of atoms that's genius how important was Dalton's Discovery his atomic theory help generations of scientists further unravel the mysteries of the atomic and molecular world looting our next great discovery in the early 1800s French chemist Joseph gay-lussac was conducting a series of experiments designed to study Dalton's atomic theory When You observe something odd  when you combine equal volumes of different gases and measured their reactions the gas is often produced twice the volume than expected  how is this possible the answer was provided in 1811 by Amedeo Avogadro a physics professor at the versity of Turin in Italy well studying the results of Gala Sox research Avogadro had an Insight at the time believe the gases were made of single atoms Avogadro realize this is sumption was wrong the gases were made of multiple atoms what came to be known as molecules  the realization that Adams could be rearranged to form molecules was the Breakthrough that enabled scientists to move out of the chemistry dark ages and begin systematically creating new compounds next great discovery occurred in the 19th century when many chemist believe that organic substances from organisms or living things or somehow different from inorganic substances from nonliving things but that was about to change in 1828 Friedrich for was picking in his lab when something caught his eye  Buhler had placed to inorganic chemicals in a beaker potassium Cyanide and ammonium sulfate  now when you looked at the beaker it contained a grams worth of small white needle-shaped crystals woodmeade this remarkable was that Vore thought he'd seen these exact same crystals once before but with an important difference does Krystal's have been for did crystallized them while studying the chemistry of various substances found in urine  make sure he wasn't the Steak'n lower analyzed the new crystals there was no mistake these crystals were the same as those hit isolated before I had made urea which was something that have come out of a living thing he had made it out of inorganic substances play there he said in a person that enough in the paper you wrote about it that I have made urea without a kidney and he knew what he had done meat roll Hoffman winner of the nine 81 Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing a theory to explain organic chemical reactions so why is this discovery of artificially in urea why is that a great discovery you know that comes a time when you need a discovery and sometimes a single one cross a border to break down a wall this is what this discovery was  it's not that it was so important and then off itself but at the time that it came the simple making of urea out of to inorganic chemicals when it came it's called people's attention the whole story of the discovery is about the the underlying basis the building blocks of all matter Sonic and then organic being the same atoms if these Lego bricks have existed in the early part of the nineteenth Century chemist could have used them to help illustrate something they were seeing in their experiments a phenomenon that led to our next great discovery the atoms of particular elements such as sodium and chlorine sing to combine with each other according to fixed ratios  it was this combining power of atoms that inspired German chemist or goosed calculate to develop a system for visualizing the chemical structure of various molecules  calculate represent of the atoms by their symbols then added marks to indicate how they bonded with each other like links in a chain  it was a simple yet elegant formula now had a device for clearly illustrating the chemical structures of the molecules they were studying  there was just one problem Benzene was the only known chemical that would not fit calculus formula benzene's chain of carbon and hydrogen atoms required more combining power than the Formula One and all these organic chemistry professors of puzzling about his in offering different explanations on one of them August calculate sitting by the fire one evening. And stops to dream about a snake  and if you think about a snake calculate dreams off is the snake catches its own tail and if you think about this maybe who sing is a ring and that gives you an answer to the puzzle  the six carbon atoms of the Benzene molecule weren't linked in a chain like the snake they formed a ring each with a hydrogen atom attached with alternating single and double bonds within a short time calculation site was confirmed and its effect was revolutionary  chemist knew that all organic substances contain one or more carbon atoms in their molecules  with calculate Discovery they now have the underlying formula to explain how carbon combine with other Mall to form a world of chemical compounds the modern era of organic chemistry was born I'm being so simple that is to say the snake bites its tail why is this considered a great discovery here is a recipe for new what's new medicines new understanding you go back in time in Dalton's day couple of hundred compounds soon as a couple of thousand 10000 / 100,000 last year 15 million new compounds were registered all built on this simple template this is a work of Genius in 1869 a Russian chemistry professor named Dmitri Mendeleev was reading a textbook for his students when he began to wonder how we could best explain to them the 63 elements that were known at the time  help formulate starts you constructed a card for each element  Vonage Carney wrote the name of the element it's atomic weight it's typical properties and similarities to other elements  is Emily the cards out like a game of Solitaire and begin arranging them over and over searching for patterns then came the moment of discovery  before him was something extraordinary the L spell into seven vertical groupings each periodic grouping had members that resembled one another both chemically and physically Mendeleev had discovered the periodic table of the elements a map showing how all the elements related to one another a map so precise that Mendeleev believe he could also use it to predict the existence and properties of three elements knowing that yet discovered one would be like Boron he said one like aluminum and one like Silicon eventually the elements were discover and Mendeleev was proven right there was actually little bit of controversy because the German chemist named lothar Meyer add come up with roughly the same idea but Maya didn't quite have as much courage so that's actually an interesting thing here is this turn up comes up with same idea. Icity of which there were hints already before but he doesn't like the predictions that Mendeleev. so here we see the power of a risky prediction in having people except a theory is nothing more powerful than making a prediction that's not obvious haven't come true and have it come true the Mabel is our icon I mean that's what we associate with chemistry you going to any chemistry room UC  why is periodic table of elements significant it forever change the way that everyone would learn and understand the elements  periodic table romance used to chemistry as notes of Music are to a Beethoven Sonata in honor of Mendeleev his name is now literally attached to the periodic table the element 101 was named after its called mendelevium  it's not on the chemist who like the periodic table I hear you carry one around I do carry one show me you never know  can I seem to use it a lot Galaxy  it's a small one so I'm going to give you a test what is under nitrogen in the periodic nitrogen is 7 Seconds phosphorus versus riding at that point cross okay there's a pattern there I get it now at the turn of the 19th century electricity was all the rage people were busy making batteries in connecting them to just about anything to see the reaction  electricity was like the new kind of Fire one of the great battery junkies of the day was humphry Davy a self-taught English chemist in 1807 Davie was performing a battery Armin in his lab  he melted some potash a mineral found in the ground that also forms in the ashes of wood chemist said speculated that potash was a compound of several elements but it not been able to prove it Davey wanted to see if electricity might provide the answer here and some wires from one of his biggest batteries to the melted potash pure potassium began to emerge deviant discovered the power of electricity to react with chemicals and transform them eventually electrochemistry led to the rise of the aluminum industry the production of semiconductors  solar panels need this place even rechargeable lithium batteries in the 1850s Robert Bunsen and his research collaborator Gustav kerchief conducted a series of experiments to determine why substances admitted specific colors when placed in a flame the color they determined indicates what elements are present in the substance for example if sodium is placed in the flame they observe shades of yellow copper shades of green strontium shades red that was a good one while watching the experiments cure cough was reminded of how a prism spreads light into a rainbow of colors so using a prism in the pieces small telescope Bunsen and cure cough built the first spectroscope an analytical device they hoped would help them see the Spectre coming from heated substances  and it worked  as an element was put into the flame of a Bunsen burner the light from the Heat and substance passed through the play some of the spectroscope wear thin spread into a ribbon like spectrum of colors riddled with dark lines the combinations of bright colors dark line we're like barcodes indicating what atoms were present when burned each element produced a completely unique Spectrum using their spectroscope Bunsen and cure cough or able to discover two new elements cesium and rubidium one day Brunson and kerkhoff decided to test their invention with sunlight  It produced a spectrum that feature to line Libera denticle to those in the Spectrum produced by sodium Bunsen and cure cough had discovered the presence of sodium in the sun 93 million songs away  suddenly scientists had a tool to help them study the chemistry of the heavens we have liftoff  today the legacy of this great discovery lives on in the exploration of space the form of spectroscopy is being used to study the atmospheres of planets to search for signs of water  signs of life our next great discovery is the store Joseph Thompson and the electron and we are so everything that we can see it's made of chemicals that's right they're all bonded through electron interactions stop is a professor here and winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his research into the Dynamics of chemical Elementary processes so  Thomson discover the electron well score said that way but he didn't discover into Sin City said your I've got this thing here it is you did an experiment that allowed him to measure the ratio of the charge the electric charge the mass  and later is able to get a rough measurement of the charge and therefore show that the mass was very very small it was about 1 mm cast of the lightest known as hydrogen atom so it showed that he could extract an experiment of very small piece of an atom while I was a tremendous ebook electrical piece at the time of his Discovery Thomson was a professor at England's University of Cambridge he was using a device called a Crookes tube in his experiments I happen to have here a little apparatus that's akin to the one that JJ Thompson used 1997 is this called a cathode ray tube just an evacuated little glass cylinder with some electrodes and we can hook stop and show the key points of his experiment around assembly diretube its ancestor of the television tube as a matter of fact you do the last one and we should get in a stream of cathode rays are electrons going there and or show up for the shoes I'm Bang into this phosphor coated piece of cardboard there  here I'll give the magnetic field you can use to deflect the electrons when Thompson exposed the stream of cathode rays to a magnet Inwood been since magnets can only affect matter this meant to stream of rays was composed of some kind of electrically charged substance called radiant matter  after many hours of observing in measuring Thompson realized he'd found the first subatomic particles the ray was a stream of electrons it was a revolutionary Discover it  some years later a student Thompson Ernest Rutherford was able to show that the positive charge in atoms which is of course had to be there to balance the negative charges of the electron service scooting around was localized in a tiny tiny nucleus 100,000 times smaller than the size of the atom so almost all the mass was the chorus in that nucleus as well because electrons are so light and that's still the model we have today that's the basic how far Adams and of course the key to understanding everything involving Adams like chemistry in particular that's right scientists were just beginning to discover the anatomy of the atom now they wanted to and Its Behavior specifically the mechanism that enabled the atoms of certain elements to combine with the atoms of other elements to form new substances in the early 1900s American chemist Gilbert Lewis developed a model of the atom that provided a answer it is he who explained the electrons in atoms of chemistry's about electrons it's not about nuclei that the electrons and went in shells around the nucleus in Lewis's model of the atom each show allows only a maximum number of electrons bluest theorize that two chemical elements might combine to form a compound when they give up or accept electrons from their outer shells for example on their own sodium and chlorine are hazardous but when a single sodium atom gives up the electron from its outer shell and the single chlorine atoms outer shell except sit  this exchange allows the two to bond and form the compound sodium chloride Mobile Salt  Gilbert Lewis's theory was an extraordinary breakthrough that enable scientists to begin making chemical compounds millions of compounds that have shaped the face of Modern Life our next great discovery started in the 1890s with the discovery of a nun some radiation called x-rays the cost of sensation and scientist immediately began looking for other substances that emitted strange fraps valuable forms of radiation over the next several decades a number of scientists investigated the phenomena and together ended up shutting light on one of the great scientific sleuthing episodes of modern science French physicist on Reba made the first significant breakthrough in 1896 he conducted a series of experiments to see if various minerals emitted radiation what are the minerals he happened to test was uranium  backgrounds technique was to place different Jack's on top of an unexposed photographic plate still wrapped in protective black paper we sprinkle the uranium onto another piece of black paper then in what's the object between the aranea and the photographic plate  bleeder background with developed a plate and without fail a Ghostly go to graphic outline of the object would appear  from these experiments background was able to prove conclusively that he had found a sore the mysterious radioactive rays that everyone was looking for that Source was uranium from Bexar Albion station of radio activity was taken up by Marie Curie and her husband Pierre undertook the job of isolating whatever elements were respond level for the radioactivity in uranium ore  for two years the cherries boiled shifted filtered and processed several cons of uranium ore  finally they succeeded in isolating two new elements contained in the OR which they called polonium and radium Marie Curie concluded that radium was a million times more radioactive than uranium  more importantly she determine that the mysterious form of energy which enabled radioactivity to penetrate other materials was not the result of a chemical process but seem to be Atomic in nature unfortunately her discoveries came at Great cost the dangers of being exposed to radioactivity we're still unknown at the time good 1934 Marie Curie died of leukemia Believe been caused by radiation poisoning  even the books that she use to record her observations are still considered too radioactive to handle it was the nature of radioactivity that eventually attracted the interest of physicist Ernest Rutherford whom we already met in the discovery of the electron Rutherford found that radioactive material goes through a natural process of Decay as it moves through the process the radioactivity spine is Liam it's unstable and highly charged energy particles with the power to penetrate matter  Rutherford called them Alpha and beta particles can gamma rays  since those discoveries we've learned a lot about radioactivity the dangers as well as the benefits radioactivity is giving us Medical Imaging  a treatment for tumors method for calculating the age of the Earth and a power source for our spacecraft to explore the solar system even some smoke detectors contain a small amount of radioactive material called americium which helps create a steady electrical current smoke particle disrupt that triggers the alarm centuries ago Alchemist set their sights high they sought infinite wealth and immortality through miraculous transformation matter they came up with useful tools and glassware but not much else qemists on the other hand set their sights a bit lower ended up changing the look and feel of the material world as did our next great discovery in the 1860s John Hiatt a printer and amateur chemist in Albany New York made new when he discovered a way to exploit the long stringy molecules of cellulose found naturally in plants and created the first plastic 50 years later belgium-born chemist Leo baekeland took the next step in the discovery process one of the great pioneers Leo baekeland made a polymer called Bakelite the usual thing chance favoring the prepared mind he was fixing things but he knew how to explore them he saw the interesting properties of this  from two chemicals derived from coal Recon discovered the world's first fully synthetic plastic in the landscape of the 20th century was forever changed what exactly is aplastic Plastics are polymers so what up polymers are long chain molecules not individual molecules that are then clumped up into any salad of some sort the reading molecules that extend out very far chains of carbon atoms sometimes with some other elements in them so what are the advantages well it's moldable you can pour it in some liquor fall into some old strength well that's not bad you can make bullet proof vests from Plastics then we've certainly seen that in terms of fibers that can mimic or even surpass properties of natural fibers no fishermen in the world is going to go back to having nuts out of cotton you can bet that those is it going to be out of my lot so would you say the discovery of plastics is a great discovery we have science Making polymers making nylon making rayon which has a natural starting point but is modified into a polymer making plexiglass or polyethylene those are the Structural Materials of our civilization  polymers are in that sense an example of the human creativity of chemistry there's just nothing more beautiful than them the shingle gram of black powder costs $500 about 30 times the price of gold remarkably it's a special kind of suit made of molecules called carbon nanotubes each nanotube is about one billionth of a meter in diameter thinner than a strand of DNA yet filled with the world of promise that has a lot of people excited including a scientist who helped discover them Richard Smalley is a professor of chemistry at Rice University in Houston Texas in 1985 insole chemists Robert Carol and Harold croteau or study and chemical conditions in outer space using sophisticated laser and spectroscopic equipment they were searching for evidence that might help reveal the chemical nature of interstellar matter  instead they found something else for which they would share the nine 96 Nobel Prize for chemistry  what exactly did you discover volume in 1985 over turn it up a week we discovered that there was one special cluster of carbon atoms and had precisely 60 Adams that was magic with special Sable compared to any other cluster and we wondered why Smalley croteau and curl name the new molecules buckyball after Buckminster for the architect who designed the geodesic dome  what did really discovered was a whole new class of large all carbon Oculus which came to be called folder eanes  molecules not just when some atoms are stuck together by good bonds it's a there's another copper molecule and that is when you put the last atom it kind of clicks and it's it's done it stay when you offer another Adams has no I'm happy the way I am well that's what C60 was we were offering it other carbon atoms in the apparatus we built and it said not to stay with 6 so here's some at least it was molecule my mind's eye that seem to explain the result which has the most symmetry of any molecule ever discover it's a big thing this is about a nanometer and diameter of 10 angstroms hear an animator a billionth of a meter  in 9 91 the significance of fullerene gained even more momentum when suing oeg a scientist at the NEC Corporation discovered yet another cat Maury of the cage like wonders but these fullerenes were slightly different they were made of hollow molecules of pure carbon that formed as seamless Hollow to call carbon nanotubes or in honor of Smalley's Discovery buckytubes there's Buckyballs right when there's buckytubes I've got a  is it get off a big now a tube of the diameter is ball is this big and this is it this is fall arranged same soda structure and I hear the pentagon's here and there's a hexagon there's six pentagons here six pentagon's there 12 total in between all these hexagons and now this thing is just a set of a Bucky capsule but you can imagine this thing being very long and in fact these things have made made millions of tons long when they're diameter now add these objects have incredible properties like what well for one thing if you instead when does plastic object which I can easily rip apart if you held a buck YouTube and find a defect in the universe Steven Steel stiffer than steel stiffer but you're a big guy I can pull it you'd find that you can stretch it out quite a bit before we expect we'll find it's a hundred times stronger than steel in tension the strongest fiber that you could ever make out of anything ever stop it means like a million years from now when you asked me what's the strongest thing same thing something has to be the strongest of all possible objects this is it can you just carbon so you could take coal or sewage old rubber tires and convert them into lucky tubes what we can do with that so we could rewire the world we can make electrical cables that conduct electricity better than copper 1/6 away so when you think about this it doesn't seem too good to be true doesn't seem magical or. It's out something how was the chance that you that you can discover something like this but that's one of the fascinating things about the current status of our understanding of chemistry and physics in fact we can calculate the behavior sings very well these days the big mystery with Buckyballs in these tubes is not that they would be great if you could make them it was finding out you could actually make them carbon nanotubes are one of the reasons the word nanotechnology is become so well-known  summer describing it as a modern-day and drill Revolution  nanotechnology refers to building things from scratch like this nanomotor  is the ability to assemble the how make a molecular building blocks of nature to create a new generation of products and applications that are stronger and more precise is this the next realm of chemistry is this the next thing in chemistry I'm glad to see you use the word chemistry about this because that's really what this is we can't afford to pick every Adam up with our fingers and stick them in we have to have a Adams self assemble and they have to come from some cheap Adams so we can make these officially we have a name for these days we call it nanotechnology a structure of the particular exact form to do it hundreds of trillions of times a second low cost with no and Bar impact to give us an object that will allow us to do something that logically that we couldn't otherwise to making objects with if we're really good the ultimate level of finesse the way nature is always built the molecules of living cells will now do this everywhere so in case you're coming to work A Certain Romance about it it's taken only two centuries to go from a time when atoms were a mere hypothesis to the brink of being able to snap atoms and molecules together and build new technology with fantastic possibilities  the Great recoveries that we've just seen Health make it happen  exploring beneath the surface of things inside the realm of chemistry changing the world

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