How are we continuing to discover new chemical processes? Should we not have tried all combinations of one column or period? What factor allows us to constantly find more efficient elements or processes?
In: Chemistry
Think off elements like letters of the alphabet. They can be combined in far more ways than you can imagine. Most random combinations are not interesting (like nonsense words), but occasionally someone develops a new combination that is useful.
It’s a bit more complex than writing, which is just adding letter after letter to get the word you want. Chemists know how easily to make some molecules (i.e. words), and they have tricks to add other molecules (prefixes or suffixes). They have tricks that cut molecules into pieces (taking a word you know, and keeping only part of it to form another new word).
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