Chemistry: How Matter Works
Understand the hidden rules governing every substance you touch, eat, and breathe. Discover how atomic interactions create the physical world and drive chemical transformations. Learn to see everyday phenomena—from cooking to rust—through the eyes of a chemist.
Like Duolingo, but for Chemistry: How Matter Works. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
28 levels across 4 sections, about 56 minutes end to end, roughly 11 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Observing Matter and Its Changes, The Atomic Building Blocks, How Substances Connect and Transform, and Chemistry in the Everyday World. It starts from scratch.
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Key ideas in Chemistry: How Matter Works
- Physical changes alter state, shape, or size while keeping the same substance
- Chemical changes transform starting materials into completely new substances
- Phase changes like melting or freezing are always physical
- Spontaneous bubbling without heating indicates a new gas is being produced by a reaction
- Spontaneous temperature shifts without external heating or cooling mean chemical bonds are reacting
- Unexpected color changes like browning fruit indicate new substances forming
- Boiling and melting are driven by external heat and are merely physical state changes
- Dissolved salt particles intermingle with water molecules without turning into a new chemical compound
- Evaporating or boiling away the water leaves the original salt crystals behind intact
- Disappearing from view is not the same as being chemically destroyed or transformed
- Heat permanently reshapes proteins in egg whites and yolks into a firm, new structure
- Cooking transformations cannot be undone simply by reversing temperature
- Permanent changes in texture, color, and flavor in cooked foods signal chemical change
- Rusting occurs when iron chemically reacts with oxygen and moisture in the air to make a new compound
- The red crumbly crust (rust) has distinct properties from the original shiny, sturdy iron metal
- Corrosion is a slow chemical change that gradually consumes the original metal
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Chemistry: How Matter Works the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
What happens during a chemical change that makes it different from a physical one?
Get it right to open this lesson and 27 more in the app.
Where Chemistry: How Matter Works takes you
- 1
Observing Matter and Its Changes
- Spotting Chemical Change in Daily Life
- States of Matter and Phase Transitions
- 2
The Atomic Building Blocks
- Anatomy of the Atom
- Navigating the Periodic Table
- 3
How Substances Connect and Transform
- Chemical Bonds and Molecular Shapes
- Balancing Reactions and Energy Flow
- Reaction Rates and Equilibrium
- 4
Chemistry in the Everyday World
- Acids, Bases, and the pH Scale
- Solutions, Solubility, and Water's Quirks
4 sections · 9 units · 28 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
You pick the voice
Chemistry: How Matter Works is taught in the The Bestie style: your friend who just gets it. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Intermediate Chemistry: The Molecular Logic
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Mastering the Building Blocks of the Universe
Stop memorizing names and start understanding how everything around you is built. From the air you breathe to the phone in your hand, discover how a few simple elements create our entire world.
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