Chemistry-friend or foe?

During all these years people have been debating whether chemistry is a friend or a foe of the human beings. Well, I have decided to talk about the pros and cons and in the end you will make up your mind based on what will be presented to you.

Before I bring in any arguments I want to draw attention to one of the problems regarding chemistry. It is believed by many people that the subject may seem complex and intimidating, but once we understand a few basics, we will be on our way to experimenting and understanding the chemical world.

I am aware that we all have heard about molecules, compounds and atoms, but we have never understood their exactly meaning.

Atoms are the basics unit of an element. An atom is a form of matter which may not be further broken down using any chemical means. When two or more atoms form a chemical bond with each other it results the molecule. Two or more molecules form the compound. Lets take an example: a baby. At the beginning there are atoms. These atoms combine and form molecules which in the end form the compound - the cell. All the cells combined form tissues, the organs and finally the human being.

Chemicals- another known word by most of the people. No matter whom you are or what you do it is important to realize that you can be called a chemist without attending specialized courses as you work with chemicals or touch them every day. Chemistry is the base of what you eat or wear, the air you breathe the medications you take and all the products you use - cleaning or cosmetics. Fireworks and explosions are based on chemistry as well.

Do not forget that it is necessary to expand your knowledge and use them in order to become a well-known scientist in this field. And what can be more interesting than you getting the opportunity to develop new products, improve processes and solve problems.

But lets see how chemistry helps you in everyday life:

1) Cooking: in this case chemistry helps you to understand what changes appear in the food once you cooked it or how the food is processed by your body;

2) Cleaning: every day you use chemistry in order to decide what cleaning product is the best for your needs or when you have to prepare solutions based on different proportions;

3) Medicine: once you have understood the basic chemistry you will be able to understand the effect of the vitamins, supplement and drugs on your body.

4) Environment: you are using chemistry to protect the environment from different pollutants and other toxic substances.

However, there is also a bad part regarding this subject. As you are all aware, nobody is perfect and chemistry makes no exceptions. Sometimes chemistry has a negative impact on your health and not to mention the environment. You may not notice but most of your time you are exposed to industrial chemical which might have an impact on you and on all the other living beings. The latest data has shown that only 14% of the chemicals used in high volumes have a full minimum set of safety data, whilst 21% have no publicly available safety data at all. Also, the environment has a lot to suffer from all the toxic substances people are throwing away in the waters or on the soil. Luckily, scientists from all over the world are trying to come up with solutions and the results are good so far. For example, all shops are selling biodegradable bags and also they have eco-tax and fee packages. Not to forget that nowadays there are laws imposing to get rid of the toxic substances in a manner that will not destroy the environment and will not interfere with peoples health.

To sum up, this subject is still open to discussions, but people have to understand that chemistry was never our foe. In fact, chemistry is just giving us a hand in our lives by explaining everything that surrounds us and how to make use of it. It is up to us how well we understand and apply everything we have learned.