Before revealing this topic, it is impossible not to recall the words of one of the heroes of Kurt Vonnegut’s novel “Cradle for the Cat”: “No matter what scientists work on, they still get weapons.”
The importance of chemistry in human life is very difficult to overestimate, because these processes surround us everywhere: from elementary cooking to biological processes in the body. Achievements in this field of knowledge have brought great damage to mankind (the creation of weapons of mass destruction), and gave salvation from death (the development of medicines for diseases, the cultivation of artificial organs, etc.). It is impossible to be indifferent to this science: so many conflicting discoveries have not occurred in any other field of knowledge.
The role of chemistry in human life: everyday life
This area is impossible without chemical processes : for example, few people think when they set fire to a match that they are carrying out a complex chemical process. Or, for example, personal hygiene is also accompanied by chemical reactions when a person uses soap, which foams when interacting with water. The same washing with the use of powders, rinses to soften laundry is accompanied by such reactions.
When a person drinks tea with lemon, he notices that the color of the drink is weakened if this fruit is added to boiling water, and it is unlikely that many people would perceive tea in this case as an acid indicator, similar to a litmus. We can observe the same reaction if we sprinkle blue cabbage with vinegar solution: it will turn pink.
When people make repairs and knead cement, burn bricks, and extinguish lime with water, complex chemical processes take place that we don’t think about in everyday life, but not a single person could have done without them.
Chemistry in Human Life: Medicine
In medicine, there are many examples of the most complex chemical reactions used intentionally. By mixing substances, medicines are obtained, and when they react with the cells of the body, recovery comes.
Nevertheless, chemistry can play both a constructive role in medicine and a destructive one, because not only medicines are created, but also poisons - toxic substances harmful to human health.
There are such types of toxic substances:
- harmful;
- annoying;
- aggressive;
- carcinogenic.
Chemistry in human life: the biological side of life
Chemistry is a part of our life, and without certain processes that took place on Earth before life was born, naturally, we would not have been. The assimilation of food, respiration of man and animal is based on chemical reactions. The same process of photosynthesis, without which people cannot live, is also accompanied by chemical processes.
Some scientists believe that the origin of life on our planet took place in an environment consisting of carbon dioxide, ammonia, water and methane, and the first organisms received energy for life, decomposing molecules without oxidation. These are the simplest chemical reactions that accompany the birth of life on Earth.
Chemistry in Human Life: Production
Knowledge of such processes is widely used in industry; new technologies are being developed on their basis.
Even in ancient times, crafts were common, based on chemical processes: for example, the creation of ceramics, metal processing, the use of natural dyes.
Today, the petrochemical and chemical industries are one of the most significant sectors of the economy, and this suggests that chemical processes and knowledge about them play an important role in society. It depends only on humanity how to use them - for creative or destructive purposes, because among the variety of chemicals you can also find dangerous for humans (explosive, oxidizing, flammable, etc.).
Thus, chemistry in human life is a panacea for diseases, and weapons, and economics, and cooking, and, of course, life itself.