CHEM 1081: Chemistry for Life Sciences – Chapter 1 Overview

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Welcome to CHEM 1081, Chemistry for Life Sciences! This course meets Tuesday and Thursday with Professor Gadkari, and everything you need — from iClicker setup to assignments — is right at your fingertips from day one. Chemistry is the study of matter and energy. Matter is anything that has mass and occupies space, and the simplest form of matter is an element — a substance that cannot be broken down into simpler, stable substances by chemical means. Atoms are the smallest units of an element that still carry its properties. When atoms of different elements bond together, they form compounds — entirely new substances with their own unique properties and a definite, fixed composition. Unlike pure substances, mixtures do not have a fixed composition. A heterogeneous mixture is unevenly mixed — like oil and water — while a homogeneous mixture, also called a solution, is perfectly uniform throughout, like saltwater or air. Matter has both physical and chemical properties. Physical properties — like color, melting point, and density — describe a substance without changing it, while chemical properties describe how a substance transforms when it reacts with something else. Properties can also be extensive or intensive. Extensive properties like mass and volume depend on how much substance you have, while intensive properties like boiling point and color stay the same regardless of the amount — making them far more useful for identifying substances. Finally, chemistry studies how matter and energy interact. Energy — the capacity to do work — can never be created or destroyed, only converted from one form to another. This law of conservation of energy is a cornerstone of everything we will explore this semester.