CHEMISTRY is primarily concerned with what things are made of and how various substances react with each other. One of the chemist’s most important tasks is to find out as much as possible about the nature of matter. By matter we mean something which occupies space and has mass. If you are a chemist student, you will begin to learn something of the way, by which a chemist work : how he experiments, records and deduces; how he works out a theory and then tries to prove it by producing as much evidence as possible in its favor, but is always ready to abandon one theory for another if he finds that it fits the facts more closely.
You many sometimes think as you read on that you have pocked up a history book by mistake, but it is important for you to know, how the knowledge of certain aspects of the subject has grown and developed, for in chemistry, as in other branches of knowledge, men advance by climbing on to the shoulders of their predecessors.
Much important, work has been done in the past but during this century the pace of research and discovery has accelerated at a phenomenal rate. These are exciting times for the scientist, and future generations of workers in the field of chemistry will find that there is much to be learnt and may use the knowledge and experience of some eminent present-day chemists to help you in a new branch of research, and you will perhaps have cause to be grateful for the work of those scientists who have gone before you.