Chuck's Corner: Can we really define Chemical Change?

Chuck's Corner: Can we really define Chemical Change?: While researching the definition of a physical and chemical change online, I came up with a new theory. I was wondering how it is th...

Can we really define Chemical Change?

While researching the definition of a physical and chemical change online, I came up with a new theory.

I was wondering how it is that we can really define what a chemical change is?  What I mean by this, is that I can currently say that if I were to set a piece of wood on fire that it would create what is defined as a chemical change.  However, is it really a chemical change?  Just because we do not have the current technology to rearrange molecules back to a previous state, does that mean that it is actually impossible to do or that we just don’t know how to do it yet?

The second part of this thought is that I don’t really believe that what is defined as a physical change is really possible unless we can alter what we call a chemical change.  How can anyone really say that if I were to freeze a specific amount of water in a specific shape and size, that if I were to melt it, that I could then refreeze it and it would revert back to its previous state 100% unchanged?

Can you guarantee that absolutely no volume, mass or even the actual shape has not changed?  Further, how can anyone guarantee that nothing has changed on a molecular level?  Just because we can’t see molecules past what we presently can, does that mean that there are not others we have not yet found and that if so, they have not been changed in some way?

I think that the knowledge to perfectly manipulate molecules is the only true way to know that a physical change has taken place, which would also mean that there is no such thing as a chemical change.

Further, I think that is wrong for our educators to actually place limits on science to their students.  For future discoveries to be made, students must actually break the pattern of circular logic handed down generation-to-generation and think outside the boundaries of boxed thinking.