I V25.0111 Fall 2000 Prof.
Chemistry is an experimental science.
This means that, in general, chemical theories have been developed to account for observations in the lab. Even the theoreticians are not happy unless their work agrees with experimental data. This is the importance of experiment to Chemistry. In the lecture course you will encounter a barrage of chemical facts and be exposed to a torrent of theories. You probably won't be able to just memorize all of it, and you certainly won't understand it, unless you make connections between related facts and fit them into their underlying theory.