Chemistry
One of the most fascinating branches of science deals with the study of matter, what it is made of, and how it works and reacts. This makes chemistry a physical science because it studies the physical materials in our world and how these materials react with each other or combine in order to create new material. It is a science that also studies processes in an attempt to understand the everyday phenomena we observe.
Chemistry has a very colorful history, going as far back as Egyptian scientists who attempted extracting and isolating materials, useful in creating weapons or in making tools for around the home. Egyptian chemists also discovered the reactions and fermentation methods that lead to the creation of alcoholic beverages. The Greeks focused on finding out what everything on earth is composed of. It was the Greeks that first named the atom. At the time they called it an indivisible unit which made up everything else. It is to these two civilizations that we owe the birth of chemistry.
The most exciting part of chemistry's history, however, is the part of its history that involves the alchemists. Scientists in pursuit of turning any metal into gold propelled many of chemistry's discoveries and methods. During this pursuit, the processes of purification were chanced upon. The discovery of various chemical substances, their characteristics and how they react were also discovered. Some of the most influential alchemists, later becoming influential chemists came from the Arab and/or Persian worlds. It was their studies that paved the way for a method that is still used today and used in all branches of science. This was the experimental method.
Geber's Experimental Method
Geber was an Arab or Persian scientist who dabbled in alchemy and through his studying and discoveries, became the father of chemistry. He systematized the process of experimentation and came up with the beginnings of the scientific method that we know of today. Apart from that, he invented many of the prototypes for the laboratory instruments and tools still used in modern day chemical experiments.
His greatest contribution through the study of chemistry was propelling the manufacturing world by applying chemical processes which in turn helped our world modernize rapidly. Some of his processes are still used today in the way that he originally developed. Many of our other common and modern chemical processes are improvements taken from Geber's treatises.
It was Geber who first found answers to his scientific questions by testing a plausible answer (hypothesis) through trial and error. He would analyze the trials made and come up with a conclusion as to whether or not his hypothesis was correct. While testing various hypotheses, Geber stumbled upon the processes of distillation and crystallization, as well as many common chemical substances. He would later use the processes he discovered in order to further his other experiments, and develop his theories. Without Geber's system, science may have taken much longer to come up with a neat method of experimentation. Though he never made the rules for the scientific method, his system of experimentation created it, and was later on mimicked by future scientists.
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