About this site

chemistry.foundation is a reference on the foundations of chemistry. The name describes the subject: the ideas the field is built on, set out in the order they depend on one another.

It is written for students, for people arriving from a neighbouring field, and for anyone who wants the structure of the subject before the detail.

What this site is not

It is not an organisation, a foundation in the legal sense, or a charity. It does not raise, accept or distribute funds. It sells nothing and carries no advertising. It is not connected with any organisation, company or institution whose name resembles this address.

Sources and method

Dates are those of first publication, except where an entry names an event instead: an isolation (1774), a factory start-up (1913), an approval (2016) or a definition taking effect (2019). Element names and the definition of the mole follow IUPAC and the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. Historical attributions follow the standard histories of the subject. Some of these ideas had independent co-discoverers not named above: Couper for structural theory (1858), Lothar Meyer for the periodic table (1869–70), Braun for Le Chatelier’s principle (1887). The pages are reviewed when something they cite changes; last review September 2026.