1) TYT Kimya - Simyadan Kimyaya - Görkem ŞAHİN - 2026

From Alchemy to Chemistry

The lesson introduces the TYT chemistry unit on the transition from alchemy to chemistry. The instructor previews later topics—including chemistry’s disciplines, chemists’ fields of work, chemical symbols and naming, and occupational health and safety—then focuses on alchemy, its contributions, and the people associated with the development of chemistry.

Alchemy and chemistry

Alchemy involved attempts to:

• Turn ordinary or “base” metals into gold.
• Find a cure for every disease.
• Discover an elixir of immortality, also called the “water of life.”

Alchemists pursued two legendary goals: the philosopher’s stone, believed to transform materials into gold, and an elixir of immortality.

The instructor distinguishes alchemy from chemistry by explaining that alchemy was not a science. Its work generally:

• Relied on trial and error, intuition, or spiritual ideas.
• Lacked a theoretical foundation.
• Was not organized into a systematic, cumulative body of knowledge.

By contrast, chemistry developed through systematic experiments, measurement, quantitative comparisons, and theories tested against experimental results. The transition accelerated in the late 18th century, as balances and other measuring tools became more widely used and experimenters began relating measured quantities to results.

Approaching exam questions on the transition

The instructor demonstrates how to handle questions that compare alchemy and chemistry:

• Check whether each statement is assigned to the correct field. For example, systematic experiments and theoretical foundations belong to chemistry, while trial and error and the search for immortality belong to alchemy.
• If a question asks what did not help bring about the transition, distinguish scientific developments—such as measurement, experimentation, and testing theories—from alchemists’ unattained goals, such as immortality.
• Remember that alchemy was not simply a dead end. Although its aims were not achieved, its practical work and techniques contributed to later chemistry.

Alchemy’s legacy

Alchemical work helped establish substances, equipment, and practical methods that continued to be used later.

Substances and materials mentioned:

• Hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, and nitric acid
• Inks, glass, gunpowder, soap, ceramics, perfumes, and dyes

Equipment mentioned:

• Stills or distillation apparatus, furnaces, crucibles, melting pots, scales, sieves, glassware, and water baths

Separation and processing methods mentioned:

• Distillation, extraction, filtration, crystallization, dissolution, evaporation, precipitation, roasting, melting, and fermentation

The lecture contrasts these with techniques it presents as later chemical developments, including chromatography, centrifugation, and electrolysis.

Several origin stories illustrate these contributions. The instructor recounts a traditional story in which Phoenician merchants accidentally made glass while heating a fire with natron, and a legend connecting soap’s discovery to animal fat, ash, and rainwater. These are presented as stories about the past, not experimentally demonstrated accounts.

Early ideas about matter

• Empedocles is credited with first proposing that nature consists of four basic elements: earth, water, air, and fire.
• Democritus is associated with the word atom, from the Greek idea of something indivisible. He argued that matter consists of atoms and empty space.
• Aristotle developed a theory in which the four elements are characterized by combinations of four qualities: hot, cold, wet, and dry. The instructor offers the following pairings as a way to remember them:
  • Fire: hot and dry
  • Earth: cold and dry
  • Water: cold and wet
  • Air: hot and wet

The lecture also applies Aristotle’s model to exam questions, distinguishing the historical “elements” from modern physical states such as solid, liquid, and gas.

Chemists and other figures discussed

• Jabir ibn Hayyan: Presented as an important early experimentalist and the “father of chemistry.” The lecture associates him with laboratory practice, distillation, filtration, crystallization, and the discovery of substances including acids. It also describes aqua regia as a mixture of three parts hydrochloric acid and one part nitric acid that can dissolve gold.
• Abu Bakr al-Razi: Associated with laboratory equipment, caustic soda, glycerin, formic acid, and the use of alcohol as an antiseptic. The lecture uses ants and stinging nettles as examples connected to formic acid.
• Robert Boyle: Credited with defining an element as a pure substance that cannot be broken down into simpler substances, distinguishing mixtures from compounds, and describing the pressure–volume relationship of gases. His work is presented as part of the transition from alchemy to chemistry.
• Antoine Lavoisier: Credited with explaining combustion through oxygen rather than the older “phlogiston” idea, and with establishing the law of conservation of mass through experiments involving metals and air. The instructor also recounts his execution during the French Revolution and the story that he asked an observer to watch for blinking after his death; this is presented as an anecdote.
• Nicholas Flamel and Luqman the Physician: Featured in stories about the philosopher’s stone and immortality. The instructor explicitly treats these accounts as legends, not verified history.

Overall lesson

Alchemy did not meet the standards of a science, but its practical experimentation, tools, materials, and methods helped lay the groundwork for chemistry. The key distinction for exam purposes is that chemistry depends on systematic, measurable investigation and theoretical explanations, whereas alchemy relied largely on unsystematic trial and error and pursued goals such as transmuting metals and achieving immortality.

Speakers and sources featured

• Speaker: Görkem Şahin, the instructor and sole speaker in the subtitles.
• People discussed: Empedocles, Democritus, Aristotle, Jabir ibn Hayyan, Abu Bakr al-Razi, Robert Boyle, Antoine Lavoisier, Nicholas Flamel, and Luqman the Physician.
• Other references mentioned: Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone; stories and legends about the origins of glass, soap, and immortality, as well as Lavoisier’s execution; and ÖSYM, MSÜ, and TYT exam contexts.