Hello Internet, and Welcome to the
Organic Chemistry Lecture Series by The Science of Life. This is the first lecture, so letās start off
at the beginning. That means letās start
off with the synthesis of the units of chemistry in mother nature, well before either
the Earth or Humans were even ever a thing.
The Big Bang happened 14.7 billion
years ago. This was the first instance
of space, energy, and time in our universe.
Itās where the universe itself banged into existence. What caused it is a mystery; nobody knows how
it happened.
Notice what was missing from the
list: matter. In the very first seconds
of the universe, there was no matter in the universe. Everything in the universe was on the energy
side of the equation.
After a few minutes of cooling, the energy finally became cool enough
(and therefor cool enough) to condense to form matter in the form of quarks and
bosons. The quarks are the building
blocks of protons and neutrons required for the nucleus of atoms, and the most
well-known of the bosons is the electron which orbits the nucleus of an atom.
As things cooled further, the quarks
combined to form mainly protons, and combined with electrons to form Hydrogen
atoms in clouds. Gravity takes over, and
eventually, these clouds of hydrogen in otherwise empty space condenses enough
to form big balls of gas which eventually starts the process of nuclear
fusion. The second that happens, we call
that ball of gas a star.
The nuclear fusion in a star works
to convert hydrogen into helium, and helium into the heavier elements. This includes the carbon which is central to
the study of Organic Chemistry.
Eventually the stars begin developing Iron 56, at which point the star
begins the march towards fizzling out like the end of a camp fire without any
fresh wood. When this happens, itās only
a matter of time before it goes super-nova, or explodes all of its material
into space. This explosion helps
accelerate the condensation of nearby space-clouds into star systems, some of
which also include planets. Because
nature is messy like that and not the neat and sterile environment of a lab.
After a few generations of stars, about
4.7 billion years ago, one of these supernova helps condense one of these
clouds of gas that we now call āour solar systemā. So thatās an oversimplified version of how
all the elements were synthesized by nature.
So that comes to the end of this
lecture. Next time, I will be covering
some basic definitions which need to be known before carrying on further into
the course. Subscribe to stay up to date
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