1.1++Ages+of+chemistry

age of chemistry EPMA analyses and K-Ar age determinations were carried out on phengite in pelitic schist from the Sanbagawa metamorphic belt of the Kanto Mountains, Central Japan. Phengite from the Sanbagawa pelitic schist in the Kanto Mountains generally occurs as aggregates of fine-grained crystals. It is extremely fine-grained in domains adjacent to relatively rigid garnet and albite porphyroblasts. This suggests that deformation-induced grain-size reduction took place in phengite during the ductile deformation accompanying the exhumation of the host schists. EPMA analysis shows that phengite is chemically heterogeneous at the thin-section scale, suggesting that it formed during retrograde metamorphism in restricted equilibrium domains. The retrograde chemical reaction was promoted by the ductile deformation. K-Ar ages of phengite get younger from the Southern Unit (82 Ma) to the Northern Unit (58 Ma) in the Kanto Mountains. The age range is similar to that in Central Shikoku. The older schists occur in the higher metamorphic grade zone in Central Shikoku and in the lower-grade zone in the Kanto Mountains. The thermal structures in Central Shikoku are inverted, so that the highest-grade zone occurs in the upper or middle parts of the apparent stratigraphic succession. In contrast, the Kanto Mountains have a normal thermal structure: the higher-grade zone is in the lower part of the apparent stratigraphic succession. The different tectonic features in exhumation produced the two contrasting age-temperature-structure relations at the western side of Sanbagawa belt in Central Shikoku and the eastern end of the Sanbagawa belt in the Kanto Mountains that are 800 km distant from each other. Namely, the western Sanbagawa belt in Central Shikoku underwent longer ductile deformation during the exhumation than the eastern Sanbagawa belt in the Kanto Mountains. //taken from:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B7XNB-4HKDFBX-B&_user=10&_coverDate=10%2F31%2F2002&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1269960818&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=aff87eb3bc704c1b8532e15ab0e85e1e ALCHEMY.
 * R**//

In the narrow sense of the word, alchemy is the pretended art of making gold and silver, or transmuting the base metals into the noble ones. The idea of such transmutation probably arose among the Alexandrian Greeks in the early centuries of the Christian era; thence it passed to the Arabs, by whom it was transmitted to western Europe, and its realization was a leading aim of chemical workers down to the time of Paracelsus and even later. But "alchemy" was something more than a particularly vain and deluded manifestation of the thirst for gold, as it is sometimes represented; in its wider and truer significance it stands for the chemistry of the middle ages. The idea of transmutation, in the country of its origin, had a philosophical basis, and was linked up with the Greek theories of matter there current; thus, by supplying a central philosophical principle, it to some extent unified and focussed chemical effort, which previously, so far as it existed at all, had been expended on acquiring empirical acquaintance with a mass of disconnected technical processes. Alchemy in this sense is merely an early phase of the development of systematic chemistry; in Liebig's words, it was "never at any time anything different from chemistry." Regarding the derivation of the word, there are two main views which agree in holding that it has an Arabic descent, the prefix al being the Arabic article. But according to one, the second part of the word comes from the Gree The word organic has become shorthand for Earth-friendly, health-conscious awareness of everything from cotton to coffee. Organic chemistry, however, is an entirely different beast. It focuses on reactions using what scientists call organic compounds, composed primarily of carbon and hydrogen. A far cry from the popular consumer denotation, the name stems from the erroneous 19th-century belief that organic compounds could only be synthesized in living organisms through the vis vitalis. Although it has nothing to do with this life force, organic chemistry most certainly now informs almost every aspect of our lives. Pharmaceuticals, food flavouring, microchips: there’s nary an industrial process or product that isn’t the end result of an organic chemical reaction. Unfortunately, the same processes that engender our computer-loving, fuel-guzzling, antibiotics-popping lifestyles are also poisoning the planet with persistent organic pollutants like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). But all that is about to change. Taken fron: http://publications.mcgill.ca/headway/2009/08/26/the-green-age-of-chemistry/ k chumeia, pouring, infusion, used in connexion with the study of the juices of plants, and thence extended to chemical manipulations in general; this derivation accounts for the old-fashioned spellings "chymist" and "chymistry." The other view traces it to khem or khame, hieroglyph khmi, whic

 Abstract

NGST is capable of reaching the main sequence turno_ of the oldest stellar populations ( // M //// V // = +4 // : // 5) out to a distance // _ // 2 Mpc. There is now evidence that the oldest, most metal Poor star clusters are coeval to within 1 Gyr over a 200 kpc radius centered on the Milky

Way. NGST can be used to make an equally de_nitive test of this in the halo and globular cluster system of M31, NGC 147, 185, and perhaps also M81. We also propose to image _eld halo populations in galaxies spanning a full range of luminosity and Hubble type. The metallic distribution can be measured using giants with // M //// V //// < //// − // 1, permitting study of galaxies as distant as the Virgo cluster // _ // 16 Mpc. This study Will determine whether halo star properties correlate with Hubble type or galaxy luminosity, or whether halos are built from disrupted dwarf galaxies, globular clusters, and other low Luminosity stellar systems (the so-called Searle-Zinn hypothesis). An excess of extreme Blue horizontal branch stars at large radii in stellar halos could be the fossil remnant of a Population III component. Deep imaging in the outer disks of M31 and M33 will reveal the star formation histories Of disk populations, which should agree with any inferred peak redshift of disk formation h denotes black earth as opposed to barren sand, and occurs in Plutarch as chumeia; on this derivation alchemy is explained as meaning the "Egyptian art." The first occurrence of the word is said to be in a treatise of Julius Firmicus, an astrological writer of the 4th century, but the prefix al there must be the addition of a later copyist. Among the Alexandrian writers alchemy was designated as e tes chrusou te kai argurou poieseos techne theia kai iera or e episteme iera. In English, Piers Plowman (1362) contains the phrase "experimentis of alconomye," with variants "alkenemye" and "alknamye." The prefix al begins to be dropped about the middle of the 16th century.

Origins of Alchemy.
Numerous legends cluster round the origin of alchemy. According to one story, it was founded by the Egyptian god Hermes (Thoth), the reputed inventor of the arts and sciences, to whom, under the appellation Hermes Trismegistus, Tertullian refers as the master of those who occupy themselves with nature; after him later alchemists called their work the "hermetic art," and the seal of Hermes, which they placed upon their vessels, is the origin of the common phrase "hermetically sealed." Another legend, given by Zosimus of Panopolis, an alchemistical writer said to date from the 3rd century, asserts that the fallen angels taught the arts to the women they married (cf. Genesis vi. 2), their instruction being recorded in a book called Chema. A similar story appears in the Book of Enoch, and Tertullian has much to say about the wicked angels who revealed to men the knowledge of gold and silver, of lustrous stones, and of the power of herbs, and who introduced the arts of astrology and magic upon the earth. Again, the Arabic Kitab-al-Fihrist, written by al-Nadim towards the end of the 10th century, says that the "people who practise alchemy, that is, who fabricate gold and silver from strange metals, state that the first to speak of the science of the work was Hermes the Wise, who was originally of Babylon, but who established himself in Egypt after the dispersion of the peoples from Babel." Another legend, also to be found in Arabic sources, asserts that alchemy was revealed by God to Moses and Aaron. But there is some evidence that, in accordance with the strong and constant tradition among the alchemists, the idea of transmutation did originate in Egypt with the Greeks of Alexandria. In the Leiden museum there are a number of papyri which were found in a tomb at Thebes, written probably in the 3rd century A.D., though their matter is older. Some are in Greek and demotic, and one, of peculiar interest from the chemical point of view, gives a number of receipts, in Greek, for the manipulation of base metals to form alloys which simulate gold and are intended to be used in the manufacture of imitation jewellery.

//Taken From :// [|//http://historymedren.about.com/od/aentries/a/11_alchemy.htm//]

Abstract Tracer-based ground-water ages, along with the concentrations of pesticides, nitrogen species, and other redox-active constituents, were used to evaluate the trends and transformations of agricultural chemicals along flow paths in diverse hydrogeologic settings. A range of conditions affecting the transformation of nitrate and pesticides (e.g., thickness of unsaturated zone, redox conditions) was examined at study sites in Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and California. Deethylatrazine (DEA), a transformation product of atrazine, was typically present at concentrations higher than those of atrazine at study sites with thick unsaturated zones but not at sites with thin unsaturated zones. Furthermore, the fraction of atrazine plus DEA that was present as DEA did not increase as a function of ground-water age. These findings suggest that atrazine degradation occurs primarily in the unsaturated zone with little or no degradation in the saturated zone. Similar observations were also made for metolachlor and alachlor. The fraction of the initial nitrate concentration found as excess N2 (N2 derived from denitrification) increased with ground-water age only at the North Carolina site, where oxic conditions were generally limited to the top 5 m of saturated thickness. Historical trends in fluxes to ground water were evaluated by relating the times of recharge of ground-water samples, estimated using chlorofluorocarbon concentrations, with concentrations of the parent compound at the time of recharge, estimated by summing the molar concentrations of the parent compound and its transformation products in the age-dated sample. Using this approach, nitrate concentrations were estimated to have increased markedly from 1960 to the present at all study sites. Trends in concentrations of atrazine, metolachlor, alachlor, and their degradates were related to the timing of introduction and use of these compounds. Degradates, and to a lesser extent parent compounds, were detected in ground water dating back to the time these compounds were introduced.

// taken fom:http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/t_es/t_es_agraw_chemistry_frameset.htm //

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//taken from:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1X5Kvrk8rw

//

media type="youtube" key="I1X5Kvrk8rw" width="339" height="280"

//taken from:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1X5Kvrk8rw// 

Age and Chemistry of Miocene Volcanic. Rocks from the Kiraz Basin of the Küçük Menderes Graben: Its Significance for the Extensional Tectonics of Southwestern Anatolia // ABSTRACT //

Neogene volcanic rocks and granitoid plutons are among the most important geological components of western Turkey. Although they are voluminous north of the Gediz Graben, they are very scarce to the south, where volcanic rocks occur as isolated small exposures in a small number of localities. The Kiraz Basin of the Küçük Menderes Graben is a key locality, in which Tertiary volcanic rocks crop out at three locations. These rocks have been chemically analysed and dated (39Ar-40Ar whole rock and biotite analyses) in order to understand their tectonic setting of emplacement and its relation to the wider structure of western Anatolia. Whole rock and biotite 39Ar-40Ar ages vary between 13.9 ± 0.2 Ma and 14.6 ± 0.2 Ma. The Kiraz volcanic rocks are calc-alkaline, with a compositional range from basaltic andesite to dacite. They are strongly enriched in the light ion lithophile elements (LILE) and have chemistries typical of lavas erupted in subduction-related settings. Their close association with rift-bounding faults suggests eruptions via conduits flanking grabens in an extensional environment. The difference in chemical composition and age between the Kiraz volcanic rocks and the slightly older calc-alkaline volcanic rocks north of the Gediz Graben is attributed to their relatively younger ages and greater proximity to the Aegean Arc. Their calc-alkaline chemistry reflects magma generation influenced by the slab descending beneath this arc and eruption/emplacement in an extensional setting.



ALCHEMY. In the narrow sense of the word, alchemy is the pretended art of making gold and silver, or transmuting the base metals into the noble ones. The idea of such transmutation probably arose among the Alexandrian Greeks in the early centuries of the Christian era; thence it passed to the Arabs, by whom it was transmitted to western Europe, and its realization was a leading aim of chemical workers down to the time of Paracelsus and even later. But "alchemy" was something more than a particularly vain and deluded manifestation of the thirst for gold, as it is sometimes represented; in its wider and truer significance it stands for the chemistry of the middle ages. The idea of transmutation, in the country of its origin, had a philosophical basis, and was linked up with the Greek theories of matter there current; thus, by supplying a central philosophical principle, it to some extent unified and focussed chemical effort, which previously, so far as it existed at all, had been expended on acquiring empirical acquaintance with a mass of disconnected technical processes. Alchemy in this sense is merely an early phase of the development of systematic chemistry; in Liebig's words, it was "never at any time anything different from chemistry. Regarding the derivation of the word, there are two main views which agree in holding that it has an Arabic descent, the prefix al being the Arabic article. But according to one, the second part of the word comes from the Greek chumeia, pouring, infusion, used in connexion with the study of the juices of plants, and thence extended to chemical manipulations in general; this derivation accounts for the old-fashioned spellings "chymist" and "chymistry." The other view traces it to khem or khame, hieroglyph khmi, which denotes black earth as opposed to barren sand, and occurs in Plutarch as chumeia; on this derivation alchemy is explained as meaning the "Egyptian art." The first occurrence of the word is said to be in a treatise of Julius Firmicus, an astrological writer of the 4th century, but the prefix al there must be the addition of a later copyist. Among the Alexandrian writers alchemy was designated as e tes chrusou te kai argurou poieseos techne theia kai iera or e episteme iera. In English, Piers Plowman (1362) contains the phrase "experimentis of alconomye," with variants "alkenemye" and "alknamye." The prefix al begins to be dropped about the middle of the 16th century.

Origins of Alchemy.
<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">Numerous legends cluster round the origin of alchemy. According to one story, it was founded by the Egyptian god Hermes (Thoth), the reputed inventor of the arts and sciences, to whom, under the appellation Hermes Trismegistus, Tertullian refers as the master of those who occupy themselves with nature; after him later alchemists called their work the "hermetic art," and the seal of Hermes, which they placed upon their vessels, is the origin of the common phrase "hermetically sealed." Another legend, given by Zosimus of Panopolis, an alchemistical writer said to date from the 3rd century, asserts that the fallen angels taught the arts to the women they married (cf. Genesis vi. 2), their instruction being recorded in a book called Chema. A similar story appears in the Book of Enoch, and Tertullian has much to say about the wicked angels who revealed to men the knowledge of gold and silver, of lustrous stones, and of the power of herbs, and who introduced the arts of astrology and magic upon the earth. Again, the Arabic Kitab-al-Fihrist, written by al-Nadim towards the end of the 10th century, says that the "people who practise alchemy, that is, who fabricate gold and silver from strange metals, state that the first to speak of the science of the work was Hermes the Wise, who was originally of Babylon, but who established himself in Egypt after the dispersion of the peoples from Babel." Another legend, also to be found in Arabic sources, asserts that alchemy was revealed by God to Moses and Aaron. But there is some evidence that, in accordance with the strong and constant tradition among the alchemists, the idea of transmutation did originate in Egypt with the Greeks of Alexandria. In the Leiden museum there are a number of papyri which were found in a tomb at Thebes, written probably in the 3rd century A.D., though their matter is older. Some are in Greek and demotic, and one, of peculiar interest from the chemical point of view, gives a number of receipts, in Greek, for the manipulation of base metals to form alloys which simulate gold and are intended to be used in the manufacture of imitation jewellery.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 80%; text-align: right;">Taken From: <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;"> - <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 80%; text-align: right;">[] - [] - []

ABSTRACT Neogene volcanic rocks and granitoid plutons are among the most important geological components of western Turkey. Although they are voluminous north of the Gediz Graben, they are very scarce to the south, where volcanic rocks occur as isolated small exposures in a small number of localities. The Kiraz Basin of the Küçük Menderes Graben is a key locality, in which Tertiary volcanic rocks crop out at three locations. These rocks have been chemically analysed and dated (39Ar-40Ar whole rock and biotite analyses) in order to understand their tectonic setting of emplacement and its relation to the wider structure of western Anatolia. Whole rock and biotite 39Ar-40Ar ages vary between 13.9 ± 0.2 Ma and 14.6 ± 0.2 Ma. The Kiraz volcanic rocks are calc-alkaline, with a compositional range from basaltic andesite to dacite. They are strongly enriched in the light ion lithophile elements (LILE) and have chemistries typical of lavas erupted in subduction-related settings. Their close association with rift-bounding faults suggests eruptions via conduits flanking grabens in an extensional environment. The difference in chemical composition and age between the Kiraz volcanic rocks and the slightly older calc-alkaline volcanic rocks north of the Gediz Graben is attributed to their relatively younger ages and greater proximity to the Aegean Arc. Their calc-alkaline chemistry reflects magma generation influenced by the slab descending beneath this arc and eruption/emplacement in an extensional setting.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: right;">taken from:http://geodinamica.revuesonline.com/article.jsp?articleId=13315

//<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">On the basis of potassium-argon mineral ages, plutonic rocks in an area of approximately 22,000 square miles in the southern Alaska Range and the Aleutian Range can be assigned to age groups that show differences in chemical characteristics and geographic distribution. The plutonic groups are Early and Middle Jurassic, Late Cretaceous and early Tertiary, and middle Tertiary in age. Most of the plutonic rocks in the Aleutian Range south of Iliamna Lake appear to be Jurassic, but north of Iliamna Lake, Jurassic plutonic rocks seem to be restricted to a belt on the southeast side of the Chigmit Mountains—Alaska Range. In the western or northwestern part of the Alaska Range north of Iliamna Lake, only Cretaceous and Tertiary plutonic rocks have been found. Rocks rich in K-feldspar are predominant in the Cretaceous and Tertiary plutons, but subordinate in the Jurassic plutons. Most of the mineralization in the region is associated with the Cretaceous and Tertiary plutons. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">take from:http://bulletin.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/80/1/23 //

take from:<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">[] media type="youtube" key="zDxeXffBBGE" width="345" height="286" align="center"

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 80%; text-align: right;">take from: []

Abstract
EPMA analyses and K-Ar age determinations were carried out on phengite in pelitic schist from the Sanbagawa metamorphic belt of the Kanto Mountains, Central Japan. Phengite from the Sanbagawa pelitic schist in the Kanto Mountains generally occurs as aggregates of fine-grained crystals. It is extremely fine-grained in domains adjacent to relatively rigid garnet and albite porphyroblasts. This suggests that deformation-induced grain-size reduction took place in phengite during the ductile deformation accompanying the exhumation of the host schists. EPMA analysis shows that phengite is chemically heterogeneous at the thin-section scale, suggesting that it formed during retrograde metamorphism in restricted equilibrium domains. The retrograde chemical reaction was promoted by the ductile deformation. K-Ar ages of phengite get younger from the Southern Unit (82 Ma) to the Northern Unit (58 Ma) in the Kanto Mountains. The age range is similar to that in Central Shikoku. The older schists occur in the higher metamorphic grade zone in Central Shikoku and in the lower-grade zone in the Kanto Mountains. The thermal structures in Central Shikoku are inverted, so that the highest-grade zone occurs in the upper or middle parts of the apparent stratigraphic succession. In contrast, the Kanto Mountains have a normal thermal structure: the higher-grade zone is in the lower part of the apparent stratigraphic succession. The different tectonic features in exhumation produced the two contrasting age-temperature-structure relations at the western side of Sanbagawa belt in Central Shikoku and the eastern end of the Sanbagawa belt in the Kanto Mountains that are 800 km distant from each other. Namely, the western Sanbagawa belt in Central Shikoku underwent longer ductile deformation during the exhumation than the eastern Sanbagawa belt in the Kanto Mountains .

properties of matter

The science of chemistry developed from observations made about the nature and behavior of different kinds of matter, which we refer to collectively as the properties of matter. The properties we refer to in this lesson are all macroscopic properties: those that can be observed in bulk matter. At the microscopic level, matter is of course characterized by its structure: the spatial arrangement of the individual atoms in a molecular unit or an extended solid. The study of matter begins with the study of its properties

By observing a sample of matter and measuring its various properties, we gradually acquire enough information to characterize it; to distinguish it from other kinds of matter. This is the first step in the development of chemical science, in which interest is focussed on specific kinds of matter and the transformations between them. Extensive and intensive properties

If you think about the various observable properties of matter, it will become apparent that these fall into two classes. Some properties, such as mass and volume, depend on the quantity of matter in the sample we are studying. Clearly, these properties, as important as they may be, cannot by themselves be used to characterize a kind of matter; to say that “water has a mass of 2 kg” is nonsense, although it may be quite true in a particular instance. Properties of this kind are called extensive properties of matter.

This definition of the density illustrates an important general rule: the ratio of two extensive properties is always an intensive property.

Suppose we make further measurements, and find that the same quantity of water whose mass is 2.0 kg also occupies a volume of 2.0 litres. We have measured two extensive properties (mass and volume) of the same sample of matter. This allows us to define a new quantity, the quotient m/V which defines another property of water which we call the density. Unlike the mass and the volume, which by themselves refer only to individual samples of water, the density (mass per unit volume) is a property of all samples of pure water at the same temperature. Density is an example of an intensive property of matter.

Intensive properties are extremely important, because every possible kind of matter possesses a unique set of intensive properties that distinguishes it from every other kind of matter. Some intensive properies can be determined by simple observations: color (absorption spectrum), melting point, density, solubility, acidic or alkaline nature, and density are common examples. Even more fundamental, but less directly observable, is chemical composition. The more intensive properties we know, the more precisely we can characterize a sample of matter.

Intensive properties are extremely important, because every possible kind of matter possesses a unique set of intensive properties that distinguishes it from every other kind of matter. In other words, intensive properties serve to characterize matter. Many of the intensive properties depend on such variables as the temperature and pressure, but the ways in which these properties change with such variables can themselves be regarded as intensive properties.taken from http://www.chem1.com/acad/webtext/pre/matter.html please don,t touch my work bye bye by>david munera betancur taken from:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B7XNB-4HKDFBX-B&_user=10&_coverDate=10%2F31%2F2002&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1238928697&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=96856ac34bdbf03fcf675f93d5389d58 by:emmanuel durango echeverri don´t touch this text

<span style="color: #ee1b1b; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 130%; text-align: center;">States of Matter <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Gases, liquids and solids are all made up of microscopic particles, but the behaviors of these particles differ in the three phases. The following figure illustrates the microscopic differences.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Microscopic view of a gas

M<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">icroscopic view of a liquid.

Microscopic view of a solid

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Particles in a gas: are well separated with no regular arrangement vibrate and move freely at high speeds

Particles in a liquid: are close together with no regular arrangement vibrate, move about, and slide past each other

Particles in a solid: are tightly packed, usually in a regular pattern vibrate (jiggle) but generally do not move from place to place.

taken from:http://www.chem.purdue.edu/gchelp/atoms/states.html // ​alchemy

In the narrow sense of the word, alchemy is the pretended art of making gold and silver, or transmuting the base metals into the noble ones. The idea of such transmutation probably arose among the Alexandrian Greeks in the early centuries of the Christian era; thence it passed to the Arabs, by whom it was transmitted to western Europe, and its realization was a leading aim of chemical workers down to the time of Paracelsus and even later. But "alchemy" was something more than a particularly vain and deluded manifestation of the thirst for gold, as it is sometimes represented; in its wider and truer significance it stands for the chemistry of the middle ages. The idea of transmutation, in the country of its origin, had a philosophical basis, and was linked up with the Greek theories of matter there current; thus, by supplying a central philosophical principle, it to some extent unified and focussed chemical effort, which previously, so far as it existed at all, had been expended on acquiring empirical acquaintance with a mass of disconnected technical processes. Alchemy in this sense is merely an early phase of the development of systematic chemistry; in Liebig's words, it was "never at any time anything different from chemistry."

taken from: historymedren.about.com

The word organic has become shorthand for Earth-friendly, health-conscious awareness of everything from cotton to coffee. Organic chemistry, however, is an entirely different beast. It focuses on reactions using what scientists call organic compounds, composed primarily of carbon and hydrogen. A far cry from the popular consumer denotation, the name stems from the erroneous 19th-century belief that organic compounds could only be synthesized in living organisms through the vis vitalis. Although it has nothing to do with this life force, organic chemistry most certainly now informs almost every aspect of our lives. Pharmaceuticals, food flavouring, microchips: there’s nary an industrial process or product that isn’t the end result of an organic chemical reaction. Unfortunately, the same processes that engender our computer-loving, fuel-guzzling, antibiotics-popping lifestyles are also poisoning the planet with persistent organic pollutants like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). But all that is about to change. Taken fron: http://publications.mcgill.ca/headway/2009/08/26/the-green-age-of-chemistry/ ​