Base (chemistry)

In chemistry, bases are substances that, in aqueous solution, are slippery to the touch, taste bitter, change the color of indicators (e.g., turn red litmus paper blue), react with acids to form salts, promote certain chemical reactions (base catalysis), accept protons from any proton donor, and/or contain completely or partially displaceable OH⁻ ions. Examples of bases are the hydroxides of the alkali metals and alkaline earth metals (NaOH, Ca(OH)₂, etc.).

These particular substances produce hydroxide ions (OH⁻) in aqueous solutions, and are thus classified as Arrhenius bases. For a substance to be classified as an Arrhenius base, it must produce hydroxide ions in an aqueous solution. In order to do so, Arrhenius believed the base must contain hydroxide in the formula. This makes the Arrhenius model limited, as it cannot explain the basic properties of aqueous solutions of ammonia (NH₃) or its organic derivatives (amines). There are also bases that do not contain a hydroxide ion but nevertheless react with water, resulting in an increase in the concentration of the hydroxide ion. An example of this is the reaction between ammonia and water to produce ammonium and hydroxide. In this reaction ammonia is the base because it accepts a proton from the water molecule. Ammonia and other bases similar to it usually have the ability to form a bond with a proton due to the unshared pair of electrons that they possess. In the more general Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory, a base is a substance that can accept hydrogen ions (H⁺)—otherwise known as protons. In the Lewis model, a base is an electron pair donor.

Base

Base or BASE may refer to:

Mathematics

Science and technology

Computing

Chemistry

Chemistry is a branch of physical science that studies the composition, structure, properties and change of matter. Chemistry includes topics such as the properties of individual atoms, how atoms form chemical bonds to create chemical compounds, the interactions of substances through intermolecular forces that give matter its general properties, and the interactions between substances through chemical reactions to form different substances.

Chemistry is sometimes called the central science because it bridges other natural sciences, including physics, geology and biology. For the differences between chemistry and physics see Comparison of chemistry and physics.

Scholars disagree about the etymology of the word chemistry. The history of chemistry can be traced to alchemy, which had been practiced for several millennia in various parts of the world.

Etymology

The word chemistry comes from the word alchemy which was an earlier set of practices that encompassed elements of chemistry, metallurgy, philosophy, astrology, astronomy, mysticism and medicine. It is often seen as linked to the quest to turn lead or another common starting material into gold. Alchemy, which was practiced around 330, is the study of the composition of waters, movement, growth, embodying, disembodying, drawing the spirits from bodies and bonding the spirits within bodies (Zosimos). An alchemist was called a 'chemist' in popular speech, and later the suffix "-ry" was added to this to describe the art of the chemist as "chemistry".

Crash Course

Crash Course (also known as Driving Academy) is a 1988 made for television teen film directed by Oz Scott.

Plot

Crash Course centers on a group of high schoolers in a driver’s education class; many for the second or third time. The recently divorced teacher, super-passive Larry Pearl, is on thin ice with the football fanatic principal, Principal Paulson, who is being pressured by the district superintendent to raise driver’s education completion rates or lose his coveted football program. With this in mind, Principal Paulson and his assistant, with a secret desire for his job, Abner Frasier, hire an outside driver’s education instructor with a very tough reputation, Edna Savage, aka E.W. Savage, who quickly takes control of the class.

The plot focuses mostly on the students and their interactions with their teachers and each other. In the beginning, Rico is the loner with just a few friends, Chadley is the bookish nerd with few friends who longs to be cool and also longs to be a part of Vanessa’s life who is the young, friendly and attractive girl who had to fake her mother’s signature on her driver’s education permission slip. Kichi is the hip-hop Asian kid who often raps what he has to say and constantly flirts with Maria, the rich foreign girl who thinks that the right-of-way on the roadways always goes to (insert awesomely fake foreign Latino accent) “my father’s limo”. Finally you have stereotypical football meathead J.J., who needs to pass his English exam to keep his eligibility and constantly asks out and gets rejected by Alice, the tomboy whose father owns “Santini & Son” Concrete Company. Alice is portrayed as being the “son” her father wanted.

Acid–base reaction

An acid–base reaction is a chemical reaction that occurs between an acid and a base. Several theoretical frameworks provide alternative conceptions of the reaction mechanisms and their application in solving related problems; these are called acid–base theories, for example, Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory. Their importance becomes apparent in analyzing acid–base reactions for gaseous or liquid species, or when acid or base character may be somewhat less apparent. The first of these concepts was provided by the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, around 1776.

Acid–base definitions

Historic development

Lavoisier's oxygen theory of acids

The first scientific concept of acids and bases was provided by Lavoisier in around 1776. Since Lavoisier's knowledge of strong acids was mainly restricted to oxoacids, such as HNO
3 (nitric acid) and H
2SO
4 (sulfuric acid), which tend to contain central atoms in high oxidation states surrounded by oxygen, and since he was not aware of the true composition of the hydrohalic acids (HF, HCl, HBr, and HI), he defined acids in terms of their containing oxygen, which in fact he named from Greek words meaning "acid-former" (from the Greek οξυς (oxys) meaning "acid" or "sharp" and γεινομαι (geinomai) meaning "engender"). The Lavoisier definition was held as absolute truth for over 30 years, until the 1810 article and subsequent lectures by Sir Humphry Davy in which he proved the lack of oxygen in H₂S, H₂Te, and the hydrohalic acids. However, Davy failed to develop a new theory, concluding that "acidity does not depend upon any particular elementary substance, but upon peculiar arrangement of various substances". One notable modification of oxygen theory was provided by Berzelius, who stated that acids are oxides of nonmetals while bases are oxides of metals.