Chemist Day is a holiday that is known not only in narrow circles of specialists, but also in the masses. After all, no matter what, he is very popular. This is largely due to its glorious traditions, which every year acquire something new.
If you delve into the bowels of history, you can recall that for the first time this holiday appeared at Lomonosov Moscow State University. That is, it was the day of the chemist of Moscow State University. From the very beginning of its existence, a very interesting and funny tradition has appeared. Every year, a chemist’s day is obligatory held under the sign of another
chemical element, which is represented in the periodic table of Mendeleev. That is, the first holiday was held under the symbol of hydrogen. By the way, chemists celebrate their day on the last May Sunday.
What dates back to the official institution of the holiday - it was May 10, 1965. Such was the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. However, despite this, the first people who decided to celebrate the holiday were people from the chemical faculty of Moscow State University. Subsequently, other universities of the country joined them. However, for some reason, it happened that some of them did not recognize the last May Sunday as their professional holiday.
Thus, in St. Petersburg, chemist's day is celebrated on the first Saturday of April, but in Kharkov it takes place on the last Sunday of April. In Donetsk, it was decided to celebrate this holiday on the last Friday of May. And even some chemical faculties of Moscow claim that their professional holiday falls on the second
weekend of May. And in Minsk this is a 3-4 weekend in May. In general, there is no definite certainty in resolving this issue.
And of course, chemist’s day unites all workers in the chemical industry. This also applies to students, graduate students, teachers and so on.
In general, it is worth noting that officially, as a science, chemistry was formed in 1961. It was this year that the Irish scientist Robert Boyle published his book Skeptic Chemist. In those days, he quite boldly expressed his opinion about what chemistry is. Then Boyle defined chemistry as a process of studying the composition of all kinds of substances and a process of searching for completely new elements.
And here for the first time the term "chemistry" was introduced by the Roman astronomer Firmica, and this happened in 336 AD.
It is also worth noting that chemist's day on the last Sunday of May, in addition to Russia, is celebrated in Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
Regarding the celebration itself, it should be noted that chemists are trying to prepare seriously enough for their professional holiday - these are interesting scenarios, contests, games. On a chemist's day, congratulations, which have a humorous color, are also very popular. Well, and as noted above, every year this day passes under the symbol of one of the chemical elements represented in the periodic system, so that the whole holiday "revolves" precisely around the next element. In a sense, it resembles the celebration of the New Year under the symbol of a particular animal.