Concept
Chemist
Overview
A chemist (from Greek chēm(ía) alchemy; replacing chymist from Medieval Latin alchemist) is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms. Chemists carefully measure substance proportions, chemical reaction rates, and other chemical properties. In Commonwealth English, pharmacists are often called chemists.
Chemists use their knowledge to learn the composition and properties of unfamiliar substances, as well as to reproduce and synthesize large quantities of useful naturally occurring substances and create new artificial substances and useful processes. Chemists may specialize in any number of subdisciplines of chemistry. Materials scientists and metallurgists share much of the same education and skills with chemists. The work of chemists is often related to the work of chemical engineers, who are primarily concerned with the proper design, construction and evaluation of the most cost-effective large-scale chemical plants and work closely with industrial chemists on the development of new processes and methods for the commercial-scale manufacture of chemicals and related products.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Chemist is discussed.
So little true is it that "recognized elementary substances" are supposed to be absolutely elementary, that there has been much speculation among chemists respecting the process of compounding and recompounding by which they have been formed out of some ultimate substance--some chemists having supposed the atom of hydrogen to be the unit of composition, but others having contended that the atomic weights of the…
Herbert Spencer, Essays
names the idea; opens on it
In the second place, the modern professionalism in knowledge works in the opposite direction so far as the intellectual sphere is concerned. The modern chemist is likely to be weak in zoology, weaker still in his general knowledge of the Elizabethan drama, and completely ignorant of the principles of rhythm in English versification. It is probably safe to ignore his knowledge of ancient history. Of course I am…
Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the modern world
states what it is; names the idea
The theory that matter consists of “atoms”, _i.e._ of little bits that cannot be divided, is due to the Greeks, but with them it was only a speculation. The evidence for what is called the atomic theory was derived from chemistry, and the theory itself, in its nineteenth-century form, was mainly due to Dalton. It was found that there were a number of “elements”, and that other substances were compounds of these…
Bertrand Russell, Philosophy
states what it is; names the idea
Still more strongly will a similar presumption exist, when the object itself, as in the case of organized beings, is no primeval agent, but an effect, which depends on a cause or causes for its very existence. The Kinds, therefore, which are called in chemistry simple substances, or elementary natural agents, are the only ones, any of whose properties can with certainty be considered ultimate; and of these the…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
states what it is
One of the most successfully cultivated branches of philosophy in our time is what is called inductive logic, the study of the conditions under which our sciences have evolved. Writers on this subject have begun to show a singular unanimity as to what the laws of nature and elements of fact mean, when formulated by mathematicians, physicists and chemists. When the first mathematical, logical and natural…
William James, Pragmatism
states what it is; names the idea
Philosophers who discussed Chemist
Related ideas
- Artificial intelligence
- Mathematics
- Molecular biology
- Molecule
- Organism
- University
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Nanotechnology
- Organic chemistry
- Physics
- Periodic table
- Pharmacology
- Quantum mechanics
- Scientist
- World War II
- World War I
- Reductionism
- Calculus
- Chemistry
- Alchemy
- Medieval Latin
- Atom
- Environmental law
Place in the tradition
Part of Atomism.