What is the difference between organic chemistry, and normal chemistry? and do i need to learn normal chemistry first in order to learn organic chemistry?
Organic chemistry is essentially the study of chemistry centered on carbon. The number of chemicals that have carbon in them is amazing. You definitely need to take general chemistry first. Typically it would be 1st semester CHE I 2nd semester CHE II and then Organic.
Okay, I am no expert and I am well used to trying to answer questions like this and having the real experts point out the flaws in my explanation with a slightly irritated tone. But so many times I see basic questions like this incompletely or badly answered. Always my justification is that, even if there are flaws in my explanation, once the experts have pointed them up, the result is a fuller and better explanation than existed before. So here is my understanding. The whole of Chemistry as a field of study divides into a straightforward dichotomy of organic and inorganic chemistry. This is often explained as simply being a matter of the presence or absence of carbon in the molecule. But apart from the fact that assertion is not exactly accurate – carbon dioxide is fine example of a molecule that contains carbon but that is not organic – it simply doesn’t explain the point very well. The term ‘organic’ implies development and growth. An organic molecule does not simply contain carbon, it contains simpler, carbon based molecules that have undergone a process called catenation. Carbon is a unique element in that it is able to form four strong covalent bonds. That is the reason why it plays such a key role in polymer molecules. Amino acids – the so called building blocks of life – are molecules built around simpler molecules all linked together by a pivotal carbon atom. Those amino acids then have a tendency to chain together into longer chains called peptides. Longer chains of amino acids are called polypeptides and the proteins, of which you and I are made, are polypeptides. That is why it said the earthly life forms are carbon based. That is the point about organic molecules.
To put it short and simple, organic chemistry is a branch of chemistry that involve the study of carbon and carbon compounds. I hope that will help?
