Manhattan Project - Chemistry Encyclopedia

Nuclear scientists knew in the 1930s that there was a tremendous amount of energy locked in the atomic nucleus. The problem was how to access this energy.

Materials Science - Chemistry Encyclopedia

and ceramic engineering. Many common themes in the fields of chemical engineering and materials science have led to the creation of academic departments that encompass both areas.

Measurement - Chemistry Encyclopedia

Membrane - Chemistry Encyclopedia

All living creatures are made of cells. One cellular component, the membrane, plays a crucial role in almost all cellular activities.

Mendelevium - Chemistry Encyclopedia

Mendelevium was discovered in 1955 by Albert Ghiorso, Bernard G. Harvey, Gregory R.

Mercury - Chemistry Encyclopedia

Mercury is at room temperature a silver-white, volatile liquid metal. It is reputed to have been known in ancient Egypt.

Methylphenidate - Chemistry Encyclopedia

Methylphenidate is a mild stimulant prescribed to individuals (usually for children, and sometimes controversially) who have behavioral problems characterized by hyperactivity and short attention span. The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that approximately 3–5 percent of the general population has attention-deficit disorder (ADD) or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Minerals - Chemistry Encyclopedia

Minerals are the building blocks of rocks. A mineral may be defined as any naturally occurring inorganic solid that has a definite chemical composition (that can vary only within specified limits) and possesses a crystalline structure.

Mole Concept - Chemistry Encyclopedia

In chemistry the mole is a fundamental unit in the Système International d'Unités, the SI system, and it is used to measure the amount of substance. This quantity is sometimes referred to as the chemical amount.

Molecular Geometry - Chemistry Encyclopedia

Molecules, from simple diatomic ones to macromolecules consisting of hundreds of atoms or more, come in many shapes and sizes. The term "molecular geometry" is used to describe the shape of a molecule or polyatomic ion as it would appear to the eye (if we could actually see one).

Molecular Modeling - Chemistry Encyclopedia

A model is a semblance or a representation of reality. Early chemical models were often mechanical, allowing scientists to visualize structural features of molecules and to deduce the stereochemical outcomes of reactions.

Molecular Orbital Theory - Chemistry Encyclopedia

Molecular Structure - Chemistry Encyclopedia

Throughout history, humans have created models to help them explain the observed character of substances and phenomena in the material world. The ancient philosophers Democritus and Lucretius were among the first to speculate that matter was discontinuous, and that small, indivisible particles not only made up substances but also gave them their observed properties.

Molecules - Chemistry Encyclopedia

A molecule is the smallest entity of a pure compound that retains its characteristic chemical properties, and consequently has constant mass and atomic composition. It is an assembly of nonmetallic atoms held together into specific shapes by covalent bonds.

Molybdenum - Chemistry Encyclopedia

Molybdenum is a hard, silver-white metal discovered by Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele in 1778. Scheele had been researching a mineral called molybdenite, which many suspected of containing lead (the Greek word molybdos means "lead").

Mutagen - Chemistry Encyclopedia

Mutagens are chemical agents that cause changes in the genetic code which are then passed on to future generations of an organism. Mutations are usually chemical in nature and often carcinogenic, but may also be caused by physical damage produced by x rays or other causes.

Mutation - Chemistry Encyclopedia

Any heritable change in the genetic information or DNA is called a mutation. A change in the base sequence of DNA that is then replicated and transmitted to future generations of cells becomes a permanent change in the genome.

Nanochemistry - Chemistry Encyclopedia

In recent years nanoscale science and technology have grown rapidly. Nanochemistry, in particular, presents a unique approach to building devices with a molecular-scale precision.

Ernest Marsden - Chemistry Encyclopedia

Ernest Marsden studied at the University of Manchester under Ernest Rutherford and Hans Geiger. Although a physicist, he would help elucidate something of value to all chemists: the internal structure of the atom.

Archer John Porter Martin - Chemistry Encyclopedia

Very few chemical reactions produce clean, pure products with no trace of starting materials or impurities. Most generate a mixture whose individual components must be purified before the results can be identified.

James Clerk Maxwell - Chemistry Encyclopedia

James Clerk Maxwell is generally regarded as one of the outstanding physicists of the nineteenth century. He made important advances in the theory of electricity and magnetism, as well as in thermodynamics and the kinetic theory of gases.

Lise Meitner - Chemistry Encyclopedia

On any list of scientists who should have won a Nobel Prize but did not, Lise Meitner's name would be near the top. She was the physicist who first realized that the atomic nucleus could be split to form pairs of other atomic nuclei—the process of nuclear fission.

Dimitri Mendeleev - Chemistry Encyclopedia

Dimitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (or Mendeleyev or Mendelejeff) was born in Tobolsk, Siberia, on January 27, 1834. He was the fourteenth and youngest child of the family.

Maud Menten - Chemistry Encyclopedia

When biochemists are asked to name a mathematical relationship, it is almost certain that they will choose the Michaelis–Menten equation. This equation enables biochemists to study quantitatively the way in which an enzyme speeds up a biochemical reaction.

Lothar Meyer - Chemistry Encyclopedia

Lothar Meyer was the son and grandson of physicians, so it was only natural that initially he decided on a career as a physician. At the age of twenty-one, he began his studies in medicine at the University of Zurich and received his M.D.

Robert Millikan - Chemistry Encyclopedia

Born in Morrison, Illinois, Robert Andrew Millikan was the second son of the Reverend Silas Franklin Millikan and Mary Jane Andrews. When Millikan was seven, his family moved to Maquoketa, Iowa, where he attended high school.

Agnes Fay Morgan - Chemistry Encyclopedia

Born in Peoria, Illinois, on May 4, 1884, Agnes Fay Morgan excelled in high school and studied chemistry at the University of Chicago. After receiving a master of science in chemistry in 1905, she spent the next several years teaching at various colleges across the United States.

Henry Moseley - Chemistry Encyclopedia

Henry Moseley's research career lasted only forty months before tragically ending with his death on a Gallipoli battlefield in World War I. But in his classic study of the x-ray spectra of elements, he established the truly scientific basis of the Periodic Table by arranging chemical elements in the order of their atomic numbers.