This is truly a site dominated by western culture and people and western ideas around chemistry, if there is such a thing:
No single thing abides, but all things flow.
Fragment to fragment clings, and thus they grow
Until we know and name them.
Then by degrees they change and are no more
The things we know.
(Titus Lucretius Carus ca. 99 f.Kr - ca. 55 f.Kr)