Where does chemistry sit in relation to other sciences?
Chemistry is often referred to as the “central science”, since the most competent and inventive chemists have a working (or even more extensive) knowledge of biology, physics and mathematics, in addition to chemistry. Learning chemistry requires the ability to comprehend large amounts of qualitative data, as in biology or earth sciences, as well as dealing with the abstract concepts of physics and mathematics. Unique to chemistry is a highly advanced non-mathematical symbolic language – which all chemists must learn – which conveys information on molecular structure, symmetry and reactions very quickly and clearly. Chemists are very much jacks-of-all-trades, bringing many areas of science and technology into their work.
