• Name anything that may or may not be visible to unaided eyes, yet it possesses mass and occupies volume, but it is not a CHEMICAL? No " Matter" of such kind exists.
  
• The total number of words in an unabridged English Dictionary? Over a million words
  
• The total number of chemical substances registered by CA thus far, most of which are natural, or anthropogenic, still originating from natural precursors? Nearly thirty million substances and it is growing at a rate of half million annually! IUPAC Nomenclature (1960). Only 3000 of less than 100,000  chemicals used today in the society are tested for persistence, toxicity and bio-accumulation (PTB).
  
• Over half a million new manuscripts are being cataloged by the Chemical Abstract Service of the American Chemical Society, an annual $350 million dollars, information packaging enterprise!
  US Chemically related manufacturing, estimated to worth over hundreds of billion dollars, generates trade surplus. It has, however, led to many negative ecological and natural resource impacts.
  
• Greek Democritus’s "atomos" , indivisible basic unit of elements, postulate remained dormant at best vs. the Plato’s four element theory, i.e., water, air, fire, and earth theory that persisted through the late 17th Century due to Plato’s fame!

Historically, there was first art and artistic expressions, out of which grew technology and applications of materials, first in support of the art, then as a political or military tool, and at last, as a means of making life more convenient, first for the affluent, then for masses. Many centuries later, scientist, based on systematic observation, developed science to explain the properties and characteristics of materials and natural phenomena.

For instance, two pieces of pottery from the old Persia, excavated in Northeastern Mesopotamia nearly four decades ago, was recently analyzed at the College of Williams and Mary to contain tannic acid and other fermentation brewery residues. This has in turn, pushed back the earliest organized agriculture and farming period by over two thousand years to nearly ten thousand years ago! Now, a couple of thousand years ago, either serendipitously or by trial and errors, humans had found out that using the same grape and the same process for wine or beer fermentation but in different pottery, they could vary the color, clarity, aroma, and texture of the final product. So, they took advantage of using different clays, earth, bronze and brass with presumably different amount and type of metal compounds. It was an application without understanding its science. However, the concept of oxidation-reduction or simply REDOX, the basis for such historical product optimization, was finally understood within the past 150 years!
Or, the production and application of soap, charcoal, glass, or harnessing fire and cooking very much followed the same pattern. Many natural events that could have not been explained at one juncture were considered "supernatural", and therefore, worshipped.

It has been estimated that the amount of conveniences of life from the point of view of energy and natural resources consumption pattern, in a developed terrestrial lifestyle is equivalent to having had over 500 laborers during the Roman Era by a Roman Emperor or Empress! Granted, though, such tremendous conveniences have caused many environmental and quality of life challenges.

• What is Chemistry? The study of matter and energy in the universe.
• Why Chemistry? Well, It is the Central Science from one end contributing toward engineering and technology, and to life sciences on the other.
• Technology Vision 2020: The US Chemical Industry through Chemical Manufacturing Association (CMA) highlights the challenges as follows:

SUSTAINABILTY is defined technological development that meets the economic and environmental needs of the present while enhancing the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
CMA prioritizes the following objectives: Increasing globalization of markets; Societal demands for higher environmental performance, and natural resource conservation; Financial market demands for increased profitability and capital productivity; and, Higher customer expectations, changing workforce environment.

Space Endeavors

New Chemical Science and Engineering Technology

Computer Technologies

Environment and Natural Resources

Chemistry/Science/Philosophy

Future Opportunities in chemistry, science, and society (interdisciplinary)

Profound Breakthroughs in the 20^th Century

ATOM/QUANTUM REVOLUTION

Erwin Scrodinger and Werner Heisenberg et al 1925: Energy is Quantized, i.e., discrete.
Sub-atomic entities have both particle and wave like properties. The wavelength of Andre Agassi’s tennis ball (k =2.6x10^-34m; E=7.6x10⁵KJ. Examples: computers, TV, radio, radar, X-rays, the transistor, DNA molecule, PET, MRI, CAT, WWW, communications, Nuclear fission/fusion, RIA, SETTI). Zepto mole

Challenge: Superstring Theory "Theory of everything there is" Unified Theory
The ultimate challenge: To determine the nature of "consciousness"

GENES/BIOMOLECULAR REVOLUTION

-Alter and synthesize new forms of life; Create new medicines, therapies and monitoring of health;
-Some believe that most if not all diseases have genetic basis; 100,000 proteins/genes identified by 2003, needed in theory to build a humanoid, a super-biomacromolecule!
-Molecular medicine and the body/mind link; Forensics; Conquering viruses;
-In vivo monitoring, correcting and dispensing medicine; Biotechnology and Bioengineering for mass producing organs, medicine, tissues, industrial products, polymers, foods, and feeds; Micro-surgery; life based molecular surgery; Extending quality and quantity of life cycles; transgenic animals and plants.

To Live Forever?!
Refer to Genesis’s story of eating apple, immortality leading to mortality!
"By design, the body should go on forever." Elliot Crooke, Stanford University Biochemist
"I don’t want to live forever through my work; I want to live forever by not dying!" Woody Allen.

Elixir of life
The original basis for scientific curiosity/chemistry; gold conversion.
$40 billion dollars spent annually by the baby boomers for diet and exercise in the U.S.; Eliminating, delaying or reversing the aging related diseases; Boosting DNA replication efficiency leading to cell reproduction efficiency; [DNA loss of information, second Law of Thermodynamic, in a closed system, entropy increase, things wear out and down]

• Immortal animals, those which increase their body size by time, lobsters, flounders, sharks, sturgeons, and alligators, show no noticeable sign of aging measurable in a laboratory. They are only limited by their predators. Such observations indicate that "age genes" do exists!

Science based nature appreciation: Possessing a manipulative camera with macro-resolution snapshot capabilities on one hand, and atomic scale resolution, on the other (SLR, telephoto, optical and fluorescence microscope, SEM, STM, TEM, SFM.)

Challenge in life Evolving from passive bystanders and observers to active choreographers of nature, thereby creating and manipulating new forms of matter, almost at will. However, the legal laws that should regulate the impact of science on society will be far more challenging than the pursuit of science itself.

The three Pillars of Science: Matter, Life and the Mind.
to fully comprehend and exert control over the matter itself.

Various Stages of evolution of the three Revolutions

Michael Krauss, Director of University of Alaska’s Native Language Center says,
"The 6 billions population on the earth living in 200 countries are descendants of 4000 tribes within the past 15,000 years! Currently 6000 languages are spoken on the planet. Within the next Century, only 200-600 languages will survive, while few will be the dominant ones." This may lead to cultural convolution resulting in a "global nation."

Sources:

VISIONS: How Science will Revolutionize the 21^st Century, Michio Kaku, Anchor Books 1997.
Technology Vision 2020: The U.S Chemical Industry Perspectives 1996.
The Future of Medicine: how genetic engineering will change us in the next century, Time Magazine, January 11, 1999.
D.N. Rahni’s scattered thoughts, 1956- (http://dyson.pace.edu/rahni.htm).