Bringing Chemistry to Life From Matter to Man

About this book

Describes the long journey from formless inanimate matter to man, while explaining the nature and the logic of the physical-chemical processes involved. Williams and Frausto da Silva show the relationship between living organisms including man and the world of chemicals and demonstrate how chemical changes in the environment have enabled evolution to occur.

Contents

Preface; Units of Energy and Work and the Values of Some Physical Constants; Acknowledgements; 1. The Development of Man's Ideas Concerning Nature; 2. Forces and Related Energies; 3. Electrons in Atoms and their Energetics; 4. Ordering and Stability of Atom and Component Associations; 5. The Balance Between Order and Disorder; 6. Dilute Solutions and Order-Disorder Balance; 7. Systems with Boundaries: Compartments; 8. Change and Its Control; 9. The Evolution of Earth; 10. The Principles of the Chemistry of Living Systems; 11. Early Life: Anaerobic Prokaryotes; 12. The Development of Anaerobic Organisation: From Prokaryotes to Eukaryotes; 13. The Coming of Dioxygen: Unicellular Organisms; 14. The Coming of Multicellular Organisms; 15. The Evolution of Man and His Chemistry; 16. Survey and Conclusions; Further Reading; Index

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