TREASON INFERNO
DANTE MIX
>WHEN THEY TRY TO BURN US, THE[Y] SELF IMMOLATE!
Chemistry Can Be Fun! (Wizards & Warlocks)
The Domains of Chemistry
Chemists study and describe the behavior of matter and energy in three different domains: macroscopic, microscopic, and symbolic. These domains provide different ways of considering and describing chemical behavior.
Macro is a Greek word that means “large.” TheMacroscopic Domainis familiar to us: It is the realm of everyday things that are large enough to be sensed directly by human sight or touch. In daily life, this includes the food you eat and the breeze you feel on your face. The macroscopic domain includes everyday and laboratory chemistry, where we observe and measure physical and chemical properties such as density, solubility, and flammability.
Micro comes from Greek and means “small.” The Microscopic Domain== of chemistry is often visited in the imagination. Some aspects of the microscopic domain are visible through standard optical microscopes, for example, many biological cells. More sophisticated instruments are capable of imaging even smaller entities such as molecules and atoms (see Figure 1.5 (b)).
However, most of the subjects in the microscopic domain of chemistry are too small to be seen even with the most advanced microscopes and may only be pictured in the mind.Other components of the microscopic domain include ions and electrons, protons and neutrons, and chemical bonds, each of which is far too small to see.
TheSymbolic Domaincontains theSpecialized Languageused to represent components of the macroscopic and microscopic domains. Chemical symbols (such as those used in the periodic table), chemical formulas, and chemical equations are part of the symbolic domain, as are graphs, drawings, and calculations. These symbols play an important role in chemistry because they help interpret the behavior of the macroscopic domain in terms of the components of the microscopic domain. One of the challenges for students learning chemistry is recognizing that the same symbols can represent different things in the macroscopic and microscopic domains, andone of the features that makes chemistry fascinating is the use of a domain that must be imagined to explain behavior in a domain that can be observed.