What Is the Importance of Chemistry?

What is the importance of chemistry and why would you want to learn about it? Chemistry is the study of matter and its interactions with other matter and energy. Here's a look at the importance of chemistry and why you should study it.

Chemistry has a reputation for being a complicated and boring science, but for the most part, that reputation is undeserved. Fireworks and explosions are based on chemistry, so it's definitely not a boring science. If you take classes in chemistry, you'll apply math and logic, which can make studying chemistry a challenge if you are weak in those areas. However, anyone can understand the basics of how things work, and that's the study of chemistry. In a nutshell, the importance of chemistry is that it explains the world around you.

Chemistry Explained

• Cooking: Chemistry explains how food changes as you cook it, how it rots, how to preserve food, how your body uses the food you eat, and how ingredients interact to make food.
• Cleaning: Part of the importance of chemistry is it explains how cleaning works. You use chemistry to help decide what cleaner is best for dishes, laundry, yourself, and your home. You use chemistry when you use bleaches and disinfectants, even ordinary soap and water. How do they work? That's chemistry.
• Medicine: You need to understand basic chemistry so you can understand how vitamins, supplements, and drugs can help or harm you. Part of the importance of chemistry lies in developing and testing new medical treatments and medicines.
• Environmental Issues: Chemistry is at the heart of environmental issues. What makes one chemical a nutrient and another chemical a pollutant? How can you clean up the environment? What processes can produce the things you need without harming the environment?

We humans are all chemists. We use chemicals every day and perform chemical reactions without thinking much about them. Chemistry is important because everything you do is chemistry! Even your body is made of chemicals. Chemical reactions occur when you breathe, eat, or just sit there reading. All matter is made of chemicals, so the importance of chemistry is that it's the study of everything.

Importance of Taking Chemistry

Everyone can and should understand basic chemistry, but it may be important for you to take a course in chemistry or even make a career out of it. It's important to understand chemistry if you are studying any of the sciences because all of the sciences involve matter and the interactions between types of matter.

Students wanting to become doctors, nurses, physicists, nutritionists, geologists, pharmacists, and (of course) chemists all study chemistry. You might want to make a career out of chemistry because chemistry-related jobs are plentiful and high-paying. The importance of chemistry won't be diminished over time, so it will remain a promising career path.