Nano-thermite, the phlogiston of the conspiracy narrative, would have silently severed critical structural members and triggered a progressive collapse.
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After over 30 years of "intellectual regress", the study of booms and busts now reminds him of a lipstick-wearing pig or an obsolete scientific embarrassment like the phlogiston theory of fire.
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The following paragraph describes Stahl's view of phlogiston: > To Stahl, metals were compounds containing phlogiston in combination with > metallic oxides (calces); on ignition the phlogiston was freed from the > metal leaving the oxide behind. When the oxide was heated with a substance > rich in phlogiston, such as charcoal, the calx again took up phlogiston and > regenerated the metal. Phlogiston was a definite substance, the same in all > its combinations. Stahl's first definition of phlogiston first appeared in his "Zymotechnia fundamentalis", published in 1697.
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Phlogiston theory states that phlogisticated substances are substances that contain phlogiston and dephlogisticate when burned. Dephlogisticating is the process of releasing stored phlogiston, which is absorbed by the air. Growing plants then absorb this phlogiston, which is why air does not spontaneously combust and also why plant matter burns as well as it does. Thus phlogiston accounted for combustion via a process that was opposite to that of the oxygen theory.
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In 1783, in Lavoisier's essay "Reflexions sur le phlogistique,"Nicholas W. Best, "Lavoisier's 'Reflections on Phlogiston' I: Against Phlogiston Theory", Foundations of Chemistry, 2015, 17, 137–151. he deprecates the phlogiston theory and proposes a caloric theory.Nicholas W. Best, Lavoisier's 'Reflections on Phlogiston' II: On the Nature of Heat, Foundations of Chemistry, 2015, 17. In this early work, Lavoisier calls it "igneous fluid".
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Conant, (1950), p. 12. Lavoisier’s years of experimentation formed a body of work that contested phlogiston theory. After reading his “Reflections on Phlogiston” to the Academy in 1785, chemists began dividing into camps based on the old phlogiston theory and the new oxygen theory.
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Flames were considered to be a mix of phlogiston and water, while a phlogiston-and-earthy mixture could not burn properly. Phlogiston permeating everything in the universe, it could be released as heat when combined with acid. Pott proposed the following properties: # The form of phlogiston consists of a circular movement around its axis. # When homogeneous it can not be consumed or dissipated in fire.
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Johann Juncker also created a very complete picture of phlogiston. When reading Stahl's work, he assumed that phlogiston was in fact very material. He therefore came to the conclusion that phlogiston has the property of levity, or that it makes the compound that it is in much lighter than it would be without the phlogiston. He also showed that air was needed for combustion by putting substances in a sealed flask and trying to burn them.
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In doing so, phlogiston theory became more complicated and assumed too much, contributing to the overall demise of the theory. Many people tried to remodel their theories on phlogiston in order to have the theory work with what Lavoisier was doing in his experiments. Pierre Macquer reworded his theory many times, and even though he is said to have thought the theory of phlogiston was doomed, he stood by phlogiston and tried to make the theory work.
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His most quoted definition was found in the treatise on chemistry entitled "Fundamenta chymiae" in 1723. According to Stahl, phlogiston was a substance that was not able to be put into a bottle, but could be transferred nonetheless. To him, wood was just a combination of ash and phlogiston, and making a metal was as simple as getting a metal calx and adding phlogiston. Soot was almost pure phlogiston, which is why heating it with a metallic calx transforms the calx into the metal and Stahl attempted to prove that the phlogiston in soot and sulphur were identical by converting sulphates to liver of sulphur using charcoal.
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Phlogiston theory did not have any experimental basis before Stahl worked with metals and various other substances in order separate phlogiston from them. Stahl proposed that metals were made of calx, or ash, and phlogiston and that once a metal is heated, the phlogiston leaves only the calx within the substance. He was able to make the theory applicable to chemistry as it was one of the first unifying theories in the discipline. Phlogiston provided an explanation of various chemical phenomena and encouraged the chemists of the time to rationally work with the theory to explore more of the subject. This theory was later replaced by Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier’s theory of oxidation.
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Phlogiston theory led to experiments which ultimately concluded with the discovery of Oxygen.
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Johann Heinrich Pott, a student of one of Stahl's students, expanded the theory and attempted to make it much more understandable to a general audience. He compared phlogiston to light or fire, saying that all three were substances whose natures were widely understood but not easily defined. He thought that phlogiston should not be considered as a particle but as an essence that permeates substances, arguing that in a pound of any substance one could not simply pick out the particles of phlogiston. Pott also observed the fact that when certain substances are burned they increase in mass instead of losing the mass of the phlogiston as it escapes; according to him, phlogiston was the basic fire principle and could not be obtained by itself.
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During the eighteenth century, as it became clear that metals gained mass when they were oxidized, phlogiston was increasingly regarded as a principle rather than a material substance.For a discussion of how the term phlogiston was understood during the eighteenth century, see: James R Partington & Douglas McKie; "Historical studies on the phlogiston theory"; Annals of Science, 1937, 2, 361–404; 1938, 3, 1–58; and 337–71; 1939, 5, 113–49. Reprinted 1981 as . By the end of the eighteenth century, for the few chemists who still used the term phlogiston, the concept was linked to hydrogen.
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The alchemist and physician J. J. Becher proposed the phlogiston theory The phlogiston theory is a superseded scientific theory that postulated the existence of a fire-like element called phlogiston () contained within combustible bodies and released during combustion. The name comes from the Ancient Greek φλογιστόν phlogistón (burning up), from φλόξ phlóx (flame). The idea was first proposed in 1667 by Johann Joachim Becher and later put together more formally by Georg Ernst Stahl. Phlogiston theory attempted to explain processes such as combustion and rusting, now collectively known as oxidation, and was abandoned before the end of the 18th century following experiments by Antoine Lavoisier and others.
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By the time he was a teenager, Scheele had learned the dominant theory of gases which in the 1770s was the phlogiston theory. Phlogiston, classified as "matter of fire", was supposed to be released from any burning material, and when it was exhausted, combustion would stop. When Scheele discovered oxygen he called it "fire air" as it supported combustion. Scheele explained oxygen using phlogistical terms because he did not believe that his discovery disproved the phlogiston theory.
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1771) was chronologically earlier than the corresponding work of Priestley and Lavoisier, but he did not publish this discovery until 1777, after both of his rivals had published. Although Scheele would always believe in some form of the phlogiston theory, his work reduced phlogiston to an unusually simple form, complicated only by the fact that chemists of Scheele's day still believed that light and heat were elements and were to be found in combination with them. Thus, Scheele assumed that hydrogen was composed of phlogiston (a reducing principle lost when objects were burned) plus heat. Scheele speculated that his fire air or oxygen (which he found the active part of air, estimating it to compose one quarter of air) combined with the phlogiston in objects to produce either light or heat (light and heat were presumed to be composed of differing proportions of phlogiston and oxygen).
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The phlogiston is essentially a big ocean of a unique element that is neither air, fire, water, or earth. The phlogiston (also known as "the Flow") is a bright, extremely combustible gas- like medium that exists between the Crystal Spheres. A signature property of the substance is that it does not exist within the boundaries of a crystal sphere, to the degree that it cannot be brought into a crystal sphere by any known means up to and including the direct will of deities. Every crystal sphere floats in the phlogiston, very slowly bobbing up and down over time.
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Phlogiston remained the dominant theory until the 1770s when Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier showed that combustion requires a gas that has mass (specifically, oxygen) and could be measured by means of weighing closed vessels.Nicholas W. Best, "Lavoisier's 'Reflections on Phlogiston' I: Against Phlogiston Theory", Foundations of Chemistry, 2015, 17, 137-151. The use of closed vessels by de Lavoisier and earlier, by Mikhail Lomonosov, also negated the buoyancy that had disguised the mass of the gases of combustion and culminated in the principle of mass conservation. These observations solved the mass paradox and set the stage for the new oxygen theory of combustion.
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When rational observers have different background beliefs, they may draw different conclusions from the same scientific evidence. For example, Priestley, working with phlogiston theory, explained his observations about the decomposition of mercuric oxide using phlogiston. In contrast, Lavoisier, developing the theory of elements, explained the same observations with reference to oxygen.Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolution, 2nd Ed. (1970).
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Calx is a substance formed from an ore or mineral that has been heated. Calx, especially of a metal, is now known as an oxide. According to the obsolete phlogiston theory, the calx was the true elemental substance, having lost its phlogiston in the process of combustion. "Calx" is also sometimes used in older texts on artist's techniques to mean calcium oxide.
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One of these, on the primitive state of the globe and its subsequent catastrophe, involved him in a lively dispute with the upholders of the Huttonian theory. His geological work was marred by an implicit belief in the universal deluge, and through finding fossils associated with the trap rocks near Portrush he maintained basalt was of aqueous origin. An essay on phlogiston, 1789 edition Kirwan was one of the last supporters in Britain and Ireland of the theory of phlogiston, for which he contended in his Essay on Phlogiston and the Constitution of Acids (1787), identifying phlogiston with hydrogen. This work, translated by Marie-Anne Pierette Paulze, was published in French with critical notes by Lavoisier and some of his associates; Kirwan attempted to refute their arguments, but they proved too strong for him, and he acknowledged himself a convert in 1791.
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Particularly against the transformation of metals into gold using alchemical methods. At the end of his life he became a follower of the phlogiston theory.
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Also, the theory that phlogiston is a substance released from burning and rusting material was eliminated with the new understanding of the reactivity of oxygen.
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In Serbian. # Computing technology in Serbia, by Dusan Hristovic, PHLOGISTON journal, No 18/19, pp. 89–105, Museum MNT-SANU, Belgrade 2010/2011. In Serbian.
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The Overthrow of Phlogiston Theory: The Chemical Revolution of > 1775-1789\. Cambridge: Harvard University Press (1950), 14. . Joseph Black's student Daniel Rutherford discovered nitrogen in 1772 and the pair used the theory to explain his results. The residue of air left after burning, in fact a mixture of nitrogen and carbon dioxide, was sometimes referred to as phlogisticated air, having taken up all of the phlogiston.
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One part, called phlogiston, was given off when the substance containing it was burned, while the dephlogisticated part was thought to be its true form, or calx. Highly combustible materials that leave little residue, such as wood or coal, were thought to be made mostly of phlogiston; non-combustible substances that corrode, such as iron, contained very little. Air did not play a role in phlogiston theory, nor were any initial quantitative experiments conducted to test the idea; instead, it was based on observations of what happens when something burns, that most common objects appear to become lighter and seem to lose something in the process.
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He was one of the first scientists in Germany to take a stand against the phlogiston hypothesis and be in favor of the new chemistry of Lavoisier.
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Guillaume-Francois Rouelle brought the theory of phlogiston to France, and he was a very influential scientist and teacher so it gained quite a strong foothold very quickly. Many of his students became very influential scientists in their own right, Lavoisier included. The French viewed phlogiston as a very subtle principle that vanishes in all analysis, yet it is in all bodies. Essentially they followed straight from Stahl's theory.
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Today it is the oldest and one of the best-known journals on physics. He was also the author of a popular textbook on chemistry titled Systematisches Handbuch der gesamten Chemie. Gren was a major proponent in regards to the existence of phlogiston. After Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794) demonstrated that combustion required oxygen, he compromised his beliefs, and postulated that oxygen and phlogiston worked alongside each other.
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Conversely, when Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen, he believed it to be dephlogisticated air, capable of combining with more phlogiston and thus supporting combustion for longer than ordinary air.
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Antoine Lavoisier, a French chemist, refuted the phlogiston theory, which posited that things burned by releasing "phlogiston" into the air. Joseph Priestley had discovered oxygen in the 18th century, but Lavoisier discovered that combustion was the result of oxidation. He also constructed a table of 33 elements and invented modern chemical nomenclature. Formal biological science remained in its infancy in the 18th century, when the focus lay upon the classification and categorization of natural life.
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Some members regard climate change as a "scam." The group was named after French scientist Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), the father of modern chemistry who disproved the Phlogiston theory of combustion.
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Eventually, quantitative experiments revealed problems, including the fact that some metals gained mass when they burned, even though they were supposed to have lost phlogiston. Some phlogiston proponents explained this by concluding that phlogiston had negative weight; others, such as Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, gave the more conventional argument that it was lighter than air. However, a more detailed analysis based on Archimedes' principle, the densities of magnesium and its combustion product showed that just being lighter than air could not account for the increase in mass. Stahl himself did not address the problem of the metals that burn gaining weight, but those who followed his ideas and did not question his ideas were the ones that worked on this problem.
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Joseph Priestley, for example, in referring to the reaction of steam on iron, while fully acknowledging that the iron gains mass as it binds with oxygen to form a calx, iron oxide, iron also loses "the basis of inflammable air (hydrogen), and this is the substance or principle, to which we give the name phlogiston."Joseph Priestley; Considerations on the doctrine of phlogiston, and the decomposition of water; Philadelphia, Thomas Dobson, 1796; p.26. Following Lavoisier’s description of oxygen as the oxidizing principle (hence its name, from Ancient Greek: oksús, “sharp;” génos, “birth,” referring to oxygen's supposed role in the formation of acids), Priestley described phlogiston as the alkaline principle.Joseph Priestley; Heads of lectures on a course of experimental philosophy; London, Joseph Johnson, 1794.
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June 2000. # Dušan Hristović:"Razvoj Računarstva u Srbiji"(Development of the Computing Technology in Serbia), PHLOGISTON journal, No 18-19, pp. 89–105, Museum MNT- SANU, Belgrade 2010/2011. # Jelica Protic et al.
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They stated that Lavoisier was attempting to impose order on observed phenomena, whereas a secondary source of validity would be required to give definitive proof of the composition of water and non-existence of phlogiston.
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Catherine II of Russia visits Mikhail Lomonosov in 1764. 1884 painting by Ivan Feodorov. In 1756, Lomonosov tried to replicate Robert Boyle's experiment of 1673. He concluded that the commonly accepted phlogiston theory was false.
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She is depicted as a rather elderly woman in an apron holding a dish brush and opening her mouth in dismay. She has been thought to be a computer program or artificial, phlogiston-driven rectoplasm.
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The resulting product was termed calx, which was considered a 'dephlogisticated' substance in its 'true' form.Conant, (1950), p. 14. The first strong evidence against phlogiston theory came from pneumatic chemists in Britain during the later half of the 18th century. Joseph Black, Joseph Priestley and Henry Cavendish all identified different gases that composed air; however, it was not until Antoine Lavoisier discovered in the fall of 1772 that, when burned, sulphur and phosphorus “gain[ed] in weight” that the phlogiston theory began to unravel.
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She is wearing a white dress with a blue sash and he is wearing a dark coloured suit. Glass chemistry equipment sits on the table and on the floor. In 1777, Antoine Lavoisier had written Mémoire sur la combustion en général, the first of what proved to be a series of attacks on phlogiston theory;Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris année 1777 (1780): 592–600. The next, most notable installment was "Réflexions sur le phlogistique, pour servir de suite à la théorie de la combustion et de la calcination publiée en 1777" Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris année 1783 (1786): 505–538 (translated by Nicholas W. Best as "Lavoisier's 'Reflections on Phlogiston' I: Against Phlogiston Theory", Foundations of Chemistry 17 (2015): 137–151). it was against these attacks that Priestley responded in 1783.
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Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov discovered the law of mass conservation in 1756 by experiments, and came to the conclusion that phlogiston theory is incorrect. Extract of page 20 Extract of page 253 Extract of page 29 Antoine Lavoisier's discovery of the law of conservation of mass led to many new findings in the 19th century. Joseph Proust's law of definite proportions and John Dalton's atomic theory branched from the discoveries of Antoine Lavoisier. Lavoisier's quantitative experiments revealed that combustion involved oxygen rather than what was previously thought to be phlogiston.
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Travel between Crystal Spheres is facilitated by the formation of "Flow rivers" -- sections of the phlogiston which have a current and greatly reduce travel time. Travel through the "slow flow" (i.e. off the Flow rivers) is possible, but very dangerous.
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Because of his more thorough characterization of it as an element, Lavoisier thus has a claim to the discovery of oxygen along with Priestley and Scheele. He also discovered that the "inflammable air" discovered by Cavendish - which he termed hydrogen (Greek for water-former) - combined with oxygen to produce a dew, as Priestley had reported, which appeared to be water. In Reflexions sur le Phlogistique (1783), Lavoisier showed the phlogiston theory of combustion to be inconsistent. Mikhail Lomonosov independently established a tradition of chemistry in Russia in the 18th century; he also rejected the phlogiston theory, and anticipated the kinetic theory of gases.
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Elizabeth Fulhame demonstrated through experiment that many oxidation reactions occur only in the presence of water, that they directly involve water, and that water is regenerated and is detectable at the end of the reaction. Based on her experiments, she disagreed with some of the conclusions of Lavoisier as well as with the phlogiston theorists that he critiqued. Her book on the subject appeared in print soon after Lavoisier's execution for Farm-General membership during the French Revolution. Experienced chemists who supported Stahl's phlogiston theory attempted to respond to the challenges suggested by Lavoisier and the newer chemists.
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His results now showed that this air was not just an especially pure form of common air but was "five or six times better than common air, for the purpose of respiration, inflammation, and ... every other use of common air". He called the air dephlogisticated air, as he thought it was common air deprived of its phlogiston. Since it was therefore in a state to absorb a much greater quantity of phlogiston given off by burning bodies and respiring animals, the greatly enhanced combustion of substances and the greater ease of breathing in this air were explained.
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The training she had received allowed her to accurately and precisely draw experimental apparatuses, which ultimately helped many of Lavoisier's contemporaries to understand his methods and results. Paulze translated various works about phlogiston into French. One of her most important translation was that of Richard Kirwan's Essay on Phlogiston and the Constitution of Acids, which she both translated and critiqued, adding footnotes as she went along and pointing out errors in the chemistry made throughout the paper. Paulze was instrumental in the 1789 publication of Lavoisier's Elementary Treatise on Chemistry, which presented a unified view of chemistry as a field.
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Robert Hooke, Ole Borch, Mikhail Lomonosov, and Pierre Bayen all produced oxygen in experiments in the 17th and the 18th century but none of them recognized it as a chemical element.Emsley 2001, p.299 This may have been in part due to the prevalence of the philosophy of combustion and corrosion called the phlogiston theory, which was then the favored explanation of those processes. Established in 1667 by the German alchemist J. J. Becher, and modified by the chemist Georg Ernst Stahl by 1731, phlogiston theory stated that all combustible materials were made of two parts.
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While Priestley accepted parts of Lavoisier's theory, he was unprepared to assent to the major revolutions Lavoisier proposed: the overthrow of phlogiston, a chemistry based conceptually on elements and compounds, and a new chemical nomenclature. Priestley's original experiments on "dephlogisticated air" (oxygen), combustion, and water provided Lavoisier with the data he needed to construct much of his system; yet Priestley never accepted Lavoisier's new theories and continued to defend phlogiston theory for the rest of his life. Lavoisier's system was based largely on the quantitative concept that mass is neither created nor destroyed in chemical reactions (i.e.
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He also propounded a view of fermentation, which in some respects resembles that supported by Justus von Liebig a century and half later. Although his theory was replaced, Stahl's theory of phlogiston is seen to be the transition between alchemy and chemistry.
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347–356, Herceg Novi, Yugoslavia, 21–27.June 1971. # Development of the Computing Technology in Serbia (Razvoj Racunarstva u Srbiji), by Dušan Hristović, Phlogiston journal, No 18/19, pp. 89–105, Museum of the science and technology (MNT-SANU), Belgrade 2010/2011.
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Giovanni Antonio Giobert introduced Lavoisier's work in Italy. Giobert won a prize competition from the Academy of Letters and Sciences of Mantua in 1792 for his work refuting phlogiston theory. He presented a paper at the Académie royale des Sciénces of Turin on March 18, 1792 entitled "Examen chimique de la doctrine du phlogistique et de la doctrine des pneumatistes par rapport à la nature de l 'eau" (translates roughly to Chemical examination of the doctrine of phlogiston and the doctrine of pneumatists in relation to the nature of water), which is considered the most original defense of Lavoisier's theory of water composition to appear in Italy.
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The new chemistry was established in Glasgow and Edinburgh early in the 1790s, but was slow to become established in Germany.Olby, (1990), pp. 274-5. Eventually the oxygen-based theory of combustion drowned out the phlogiston theory and in the process created the basis of modern chemistry.
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In all of these experiments, he isolated the same gas: his "fire air," which he believed combined with phlogiston in materials to be released during heat-releasing reactions. However, his first publication, Chemische Abhandlung von der Luft und dem Feuer, was delivered to the printer Swederus in 1775, but not published until 1777, at which time both Joseph Priestley and Lavoisier had already published their experimental data and conclusions concerning oxygen and the phlogiston theory. Carl was credited for finding oxygen with two other people, Joseph Priestley and Antoine Lavoisier. The first English edition, Chemical Observation and Experiments on Air and Fire was published in 1780, with an introduction "Chemical Treatise on Air and Fire".
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Lavoisier's chemical research between 1772 and 1778 was largely concerned with developing his own new theory of combustion. In 1783 he read to the academy his paper entitled Réflexions sur le phlogistique (Reflections on Phlogiston), a full-scale attack on the current phlogiston theory of combustion. That year Lavoisier also began a series of experiments on the composition of water which were to prove an important capstone to his combustion theory and win many converts to it. Many investigators had been experimenting with the combination of Henry Cavendish's inflammable air, which Lavoisier termed hydrogen (Greek for "water-former"), with "dephlogisticated air" (air in the process of combustion, now known to be oxygen) by electrically sparking mixtures of the gases.
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Phlogiston was a hypothetical substance that was presumed to be liberated from combustible substances during burning, and from metals during the process of rusting. Caloric, like phlogiston, was also presumed to be the "substance" of heat that would flow from a hotter body to a cooler body, thus warming it. The first substantial experimental challenges to caloric theory arose in Rumford's 1798 work, when he showed that boring cast iron cannons produced great amounts of heat which he ascribed to friction, and his work was among the first to undermine the caloric theory. The development of the steam engine also focused attention on calorimetry and the amount of heat produced from different types of coal.
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Such dating is significant as both Lavoisier and Swedish pharmacist Carl Wilhelm Scheele have strong claims to the discovery of oxygen as well, Scheele having been the first to isolate the gas (although he published after Priestley) and Lavoisier having been the first to describe it as purified "air itself entire without alteration" (that is, the first to explain oxygen without phlogiston theory).Kuhn, 53–55. In his paper "Observations on Respiration and the Use of the Blood", Priestley was the first to suggest a connection between blood and air, although he did so using phlogiston theory. In typical Priestley fashion, he prefaced the paper with a history of the study of respiration.
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Ch. 26. The term phlogiston itself was not something that Stahl invented. There is evidence that the word was used as early as 1606, and in a way that was very similar to what Stahl was using it for. The term was derived from a Greek word meaning to inflame.
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He was able to make the theory applicable to chemistry. Becher's theories attempted in explaining chemistry as comprehensively as seemingly possible through classifying different earths according to specific reactions. Terra pinguis was a substance that escaped during combustion reactions, according to Becher. Stahl, influenced by Becher's work, developed his theory of phlogiston.
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In 1703 Georg Ernst Stahl, professor of medicine and chemistry at Halle, proposed a variant of the theory in which he renamed Becher's terra pinguis to phlogiston, and it was in this form that the theory probably had its greatest influence.Mason, Stephen F., (1962). A History of the Sciences (revised edition). New York: Collier Books.
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He took an empirical approach when establishing his descriptions of chemistry. Stahl used the works of Johann Joachim Becher to help him come up with explanations of chemical phenomena. The main theory that Stahl got from J. J. Becher was the theory of phlogiston. This theory did not have any experimental basis before Stahl.
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Gadolin made contributions in a variety of areas. Although he never visited France, he became a proponent of Antoine Lavoisier's theory of combustion. Gadolin's Inledning till Chemien (1798) was the first chemistry textbook in the Nordic countries that questioned the theory of phlogiston and discussed the role of oxygen in combustion in a modern way.
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Richard Kirwan, LL.D, FRS, FRSE MRIA (1 August 1733 – 22 June 1812) was an Irish geologist and chemist. He was one of the last supporters of the theory of phlogiston. Kirwan was active in the fields of chemistry, meteorology, and geology. He was widely known in his day, corresponding and meeting with Lavoisier, Black, Priestley, and Cavendish.
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In 1667, Johann Joachim Becher published his book Physica subterranea, which contained the first instance of what would become the phlogiston theory. In his book, Becher eliminated fire and air from the classical element model and replaced them with three forms of earth: terra lapidea, terra fluida, and terra pinguis.Becher, Physica Subterranea p. 256 et seq.
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However, there are some objections to Laudan's theory. One might see shortcomings in the historic examples Laudan gives as proof of his hypothesis. Theories later refuted, like that of crystalline spheres in astronomy, or the phlogiston theory, do not represent the most successful theories at their time. A further objection tries to point out that in scientific progress we indeed approximate the truth.
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During his stay at Rostock, he became an early follower of the antiphlogistic theory of Lavoisier, teaching about the existence of oxygen instead of phlogiston. He was also a proponent of the attempts of Richter to involve mathematics in chemistry, introducing stoichiometry in his chemistry lessons. In 1806 he set up the first chemical laboratory at Rostock in the "Seminargebäude".
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Priestley also described his cheap and easy-to-assemble experimental apparatus; his colleagues therefore believed that they could easily reproduce his experiments.Schofield (1997), 259–69; Jackson, 110–14; Thorpe, 76–77, 178–79; Uglow, 229–39. Faced with inconsistent experimental results, Priestley employed phlogiston theory. This, however, led him to conclude that there were only three types of "air": "fixed", "alkaline", and "acid".
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6–14, Scheele presents the results of eight experiments in which air was reacted with various substances. He concluded (p. 13): "So viel sehe ich aus angeführten Versuchen, daß die Luft aus 2 von einander unterschiedenen Flußigkeiten bestehe, von welchen die eine die Eigenschaft das Phlogiston anzuziehen gar nicht äussere, die andere aber zur solchen Attraction eigentlich aufgeleget ist und welche zwischen dem 3:ten und 4:ten Theil von der ganzen Luftmasse aus machet." (So I see [this] much from the experiments [that were] conducted: that the air consists of two fluids [that] differ from one another, of which the one doesn't express at all the property of attracting phlogiston; the other, however, is capable of such attraction and which makes up between 1/3 and 1/4 part of the entire mass of the air.) Henry Cavendish, ; see p. 225.
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It postulated the existence of a fire-like element called "phlogiston", which was contained within combustible bodies and released during combustion. This proved to be false in 1785 by Antoine Lavoisier who found the correct explanation of the combustion as reaction with oxygen from the air.Brock, pp. 34–55 Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac recognized in 1808 that gases always react in a certain relationship with each other.
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Georg Ernst Stahl (22 October 1659Stahl's date of birth is often given erroneously as 1660. The correct date is recorded in the parish register of St. John's church, Ansbach. See – 24 May 1734) was a German chemist, physician and philosopher. He was a supporter of vitalism, and until the late 18th century his works on phlogiston were accepted as an explanation for chemical processes.
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Lavoisier is most noted for his discovery of the role oxygen plays in combustion. He recognized and named oxygen (1778) and hydrogen (1783), and opposed the phlogiston theory. Lavoisier helped construct the metric system, wrote the first extensive list of elements, and helped to reform chemical nomenclature. He predicted the existence of silicon (1787)In his table of the elements, Lavoisier listed five "salifiable earths" (i.e.
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A year later, he confirmed Carl Wilhelm Scheele's discovery that chlorine can be produced from hydrochloric acid and manganese. Like Claude Louis Berthollet, Pelletier arrived to the false conclusion that the resulting gas was a combination of hydrochloric acid and oxygen. An adherent to Carl Wilhelm Scheele's phlogiston theory, Pelletier followed Lavoisier's more modern approaches only after 1787. From 1785 to 1792, he studied phosphorus in depth.
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The gas was first synthesised in 1772 by English natural philosopher and chemist Joseph Priestley who called it phlogisticated nitrous air (see phlogiston theory) or inflammable nitrous air. Priestley published his discovery in the book Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (1775), where he described how to produce the preparation of "nitrous air diminished", by heating iron filings dampened with nitric acid.
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A year later, clearly influenced by Priestley, Lavoisier was also discussing respiration at the Académie des sciences. Lavoisier's work began the long train of discovery that produced papers on oxygen respiration and culminated in the overthrow of phlogiston theory and the establishment of modern chemistry.Schofield (2004), 129–30; Gibbs, 124–25. Around 1779 Priestley and Shelburne had a rupture, the precise reasons for which remain unclear.
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Lavoisier kept records of her husband's work and ensured that his works were published. The first sign of Marie-Anne's true potential as a chemist in Lavoisier's lab came when she was translating a book by the scientist Richard Kirwan. While translating, she stumbled upon and corrected multiple errors. When she presented her translation, along with her notes, to Lavoisier, her contributions led to Lavoisier's refutation of the theory of phlogiston.
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A friendship developed between Scheele and Bergman after Scheele analyzed a reaction which Bergman and his assistant Johan Gottlieb Gahn could not resolve. The reaction was between melted saltpetre and acetic acid which produced a red vapor. Further study of this reaction later led to Scheele's discovery of oxygen (see "The theory of phlogiston" below). Based upon this friendship and respect Scheele was given free use of Bergman's laboratory.
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Lavoisier's work was not immediately accepted and it took several decades for it gain momentum. This transition was aided by the work of Jöns Jakob Berzelius, who came up with a simplified shorthand to describe chemical compounds based on John Dalton's theory of atomic weights. Many people credit Lavoisier and his overthrow of phlogiston theory as the traditional chemical revolution, with Lavoisier marking the beginning of the revolution and John Dalton marking its culmination.
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This periodic journal was the first journal focusing primary on chemistry. Crell stopped publishing the journal in 1804 after the concurrence of the chemical journal of Alexander Nicolaus Scherer and Adolph Ferdinand Gehlen, today published as Journal für praktische Chemie became too strong. Crell was involved in the sometimes harsh discussion about the phlogiston theory. The experiments of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier showed that the up to that point accepted theory was probably wrong.
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Von Crell translated some articles of Richard Kirwan, a supporter of the phlogiston theory. Von Crell defended the theory until 1799 and never openly accepted that it was wrong. Crell was elected into the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 1778. In 1780 the Duke of Brunswick made him a Bergrat (administrator of mining) and in 1781 he was nobled by the emperor Leopold II (his name changed from Crell to von Crell).
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Lavoisier made many fundamental contributions to the science of chemistry. Following his work, chemistry acquired a strict, quantitative nature, allowing reliable predictions to be made. The revolution in chemistry which he brought about was a result of a conscious effort to fit all experiments into the framework of a single theory. He established the consistent use of chemical balance, used oxygen to overthrow the phlogiston theory, and developed a new system of chemical nomenclature.
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Keir worked closely with Priestley to investigate the properties of gases. On 3 May 1787 Keir communicated to the Royal Society some "Experiments on the Congelation of the Vitriolic Acid", and on 1 May 1788 "Remarks on the Principle of Acidity, Decomposition of Water, and Phlogiston". Another paper, on "Fossil Alkali", appeared in 1788 in the "Transactions of the Society of Arts". Keir published the first part of his "Dictionary of Chemistry" in 1789.
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Terra pinguis was the element that imparted oily, sulphurous, or combustible properties. Becher believed that terra pinguis was a key feature of combustion and was released when combustible substances were burned. Becher did not have much to do with phlogiston theory as we know it now, but he had a large influence on his student Stahl. Becher's main contribution was the start of the theory itself, however much it was changed after him.
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In 1772, Black's student Daniel Rutherford discovered nitrogen, which he called phlogisticated air, and together they developed the phlogiston theory.Biographical note at "Lectures and Papers of Professor Daniel Rutherford (1749–1819), and Diary of Mrs Harriet Rutherford". In 1777, Antoine Lavoisier discovered oxygen and developed an explanation for combustion."Sur la combustion en général" ("On Combustion in general", 1777) and "Considérations Générales sur la Nature des Acides" ("General Considerations on the Nature of Acids", 1778).
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Cavendish worked with his instrument makers, generally improving existing instruments rather than inventing wholly new ones. Cavendish, as indicated above, used the language of the old phlogiston theory in chemistry. In 1787, he became one of the earliest outside France to convert to the new antiphlogistic theory of Lavoisier, though he remained sceptical about the nomenclature of the new theory. He also objected to Lavoisier's identification of heat as having a material or elementary basis.
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Chlorine was discovered in 1774 by Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele, who called it "dephlogisticated marine acid" (see phlogiston theory) and mistakenly thought it contained oxygen. Davy showed that the acid of Scheele's substance, called at the time oxymuriatic acid, contained no oxygen. This discovery overturned Lavoisier's definition of acids as compounds of oxygen. In 1810, chlorine was given its current name by Humphry Davy, who insisted that chlorine was in fact an element.
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Another case is the belief that the Earth is approximately flat. For centuries, people have known that a flat Earth model produces errors in long-distance calculations, but considering local-scale areas as flat for the purposes of mapping and surveying does not introduce significant errors. In some cases, a theory or idea is found baseless and is simply discarded. For example, the phlogiston theory was entirely replaced by the quite different concept of energy and related laws.
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He worked with electrolysis throughout his life and, in 1808, he isolated magnesium, strontium and barium. Davy also experimented with gases by inhaling them. This experimental procedure nearly proved fatal on several occasions, but led to the discovery of the unusual effects of nitrous oxide, which came to be known as laughing gas. Chlorine was discovered in 1774 by Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele, who called it "dephlogisticated marine acid" (see phlogiston theory) and mistakenly thought it contained oxygen.
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There are several different editions of these volumes, each important.See Gibbs 67–83 for a description of all of Priestley's experiments during this time; Thorpe, 170ff. These experiments helped repudiate the last vestiges of the theory of four elements, which Priestley attempted to replace with his own variation of phlogiston theory. According to that 18th-century theory, the combustion or oxidation of a substance corresponded to the release of a material substance, phlogiston.Thorpe, 167–68; Schofield (2004), 98–101.
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By the time he died in 1804, Priestley had been made a member of every major scientific society in the Western world and he had discovered numerous substances.Schofield (2004), 151–52. The 19th-century French naturalist George Cuvier, in his eulogy of Priestley, praised his discoveries while at the same time lamenting his refusal to abandon phlogiston theory, calling him "the father of modern chemistry [who] never acknowledged his daughter".Qtd. in McLachlan (1987–90), 259–60.
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However, unlike Planescape it keeps all of the action on the Prime Material Plane and uses the crystal spheres, and the "phlogiston" between them, to form natural barriers between otherwise incompatible settings. Though the cosmology is derived largely from the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, many of the ideas owe much to the works of Jules Verne and his contemporaries, and to related games and fiction with a steampunk or planetary romance flavor. A strong Age of Sail flavor is also present.
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This procedure produced antimony with a crystalline or starred surface. With the advent of challenges to phlogiston theory, it was recognized that antimony is an element forming sulfides, oxides, and other compounds, as do other metals. The first discovery of naturally occurring pure antimony in the Earth's crust was described by the Swedish scientist and local mine district engineer Anton von Swab in 1783; the type-sample was collected from the Sala Silver Mine in the Bergslagen mining district of Sala, Västmanland, Sweden.
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Theoretical problems that need computational investigation are often the concern of computational physics. Theoretical advances may consist in setting aside old, incorrect paradigms (e.g., aether theory of light propagation, caloric theory of heat, burning consisting of evolving phlogiston, or astronomical bodies revolving around the Earth) or may be an alternative model that provides answers that are more accurate or that can be more widely applied. In the latter case, a correspondence principle will be required to recover the previously known result.
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Pg 156. Oxford University Press (2002). . Proponents of this view, such as B.F. Skinner, often made parallels to previous superseded scientific theories (such as that of the four humours, the phlogiston theory of combustion, and the vital force theory of life) that have all been successfully eliminated in attempting to establish their thesis about the nature of the mental. In these cases, science has not produced more detailed versions or reductions of these theories, but rejected them altogether as obsolete.
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Elizabeth Fulhame (fl. 1794) was a Scottish chemist who invented the concept of catalysis and discovered photoreduction. She describes catalysis as a process at length in her 1794 book An Essay On Combustion with a View to a New Art of Dying and Painting, wherein the Phlogistic and Antiphlogistic Hypotheses are Proved Erroneous. The book relates in painstaking detail her experiments with oxidation-reduction reactions, and the conclusions she draws regarding Phlogiston theory, in which she disagrees with both the Phlogistians and Antiphlogistians.
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Further, she proposed "recognisably modern mechanisms" for those reactions, and may have been the first scientist to do so. The role of oxygen, as she describes it, differs significantly from other theories of the time. Based on her experiments, she disagreed with some of the conclusions of Antoine Lavoisier as well as with the phlogiston theorists that he critiqued. Her research could seen as a precursor to the work of Jöns Jakob Berzelius, however Fulhame focused specifically on water rather than heavy metals.
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Lavoisier also contributed to chemistry a method of understanding combustion and respiration and proof of the composition of water by decomposition into its constituent parts. He explained the theory of combustion, and challenged the phlogiston theory with his views on caloric. The Traité incorporates notions of a "new chemistry" and describes the experiments and reasoning that led to his conclusions. Like Newton's Principia, which was the high point of the Scientific Revolution, Lavoisier's Traité can be seen as the culmination of the Chemical Revolution.
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Giobert carried out research into the conduction of electricity and the forming of precipitates along a wire in a galvanic apparatus. Giobert was one of the first to spread Antoine Lavoisier's theories in Italy. He published experimental work in the debate over whether water was a simple element or chemical composition of hydrogen and oxygen. In 1792, his work on the refutation of phlogiston theory won a prize competition on the subject, put forward by the Academy of Letters and Sciences of Mantua in 1790 and 1791.
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However, Priestley's determination to defend phlogiston theory and to reject what would become the chemical revolution eventually left him isolated within the scientific community. In 1781, Carl Wilhelm Scheele discovered that a new acid, tungstic acid, could be made from Cronstedt's scheelite (at the time named tungsten). Scheele and Torbern Bergman suggested that it might be possible to obtain a new metal by reducing this acid. In 1783, José and Fausto Elhuyar found an acid made from wolframite that was identical to tungstic acid.
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The world's first ice-calorimeter, used in the winter of 1782–83, by Antoine Lavoisier and Pierre-Simon Laplace, to determine the heat evolved in various chemical changes; calculations which were based on Joseph Black's prior discovery of latent heat. These experiments mark the foundation of thermochemistry. The theory of phlogiston arose in the 17th century, late in the period of alchemy. Its replacement by caloric theory in the 18th century is one of the historical markers of the transition from alchemy to chemistry.
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With the development of the lead chamber process in 1746 and the Leblanc process, allowing large-scale production of sulfuric acid and sodium carbonate, respectively, chemical reactions became implemented into the industry. Further optimization of sulfuric acid technology resulted in the contact process in the 1880s, and the Haber process was developed in 1909–1910 for ammonia synthesis. From the 16th century, researchers including Jan Baptist van Helmont, Robert Boyle, and Isaac Newton tried to establish theories of the experimentally observed chemical transformations. The phlogiston theory was proposed in 1667 by Johann Joachim Becher.
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Joseph Priestley, in Observations on different kinds of air, was one of the first people to describe air as being composed of different states of matter, and not as one element. Priestley elaborated on the notions of fixed air (CO2), mephitic air and inflammable air to include "inflammable nitrous air," "vitriolic acid air," "alkaline air" and "dephlogisticated air". Priestley also described the process of respiration in terms of phlogiston theory. Priestley also established a process for treating scurvy and other ailments using fixed air in his Directions for impregnating water with fixed air.
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Priestley's work on pneumatic chemistry had an influence on his natural world views. His belief in an "aerial economy" stemmed from his belief in "dephlogisticated air" being the purest type of air and that phlogiston and combustion were at the heart of nature. Joseph Priestley chiefly researched with the pneumatic trough, but he was responsible for collecting several new water-soluble airs. This was achieved primarily by his substitution of mercury for water, and implementing a shelf under the head for increased stability, capitalizing on the idea Cavendish proposed and popularizing the mercury pneumatic trough.
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The Material Planes are worlds that balance between the philosophical forces of the Outer Planes and the physical forces of the Inner Planes—these are the standard worlds of fantasy RPG campaigns. The Prime Material Plane is where the more 'normal' worlds exist, many of which resemble Earth. The 2nd edition Dungeon Master's Guide states there are several Prime Material Planes, but several other 2nd edition products say there is only one Prime Material Plane rather than several. Introduced in the Spelljammer setting, the Phlogiston is a part of the Material plane.
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The theoretical posits of one era's scientific theories may be demoted to mere objects of the mind by subsequent discoveries: some standard examples include phlogiston and ptolemaic epicycles. This raises questions, in the debate between scientific realism and instrumentalism about the status of current posits, such as black holes and quarks. Are they still merely intentional, even if the theory is correct? The situation is further complicated by the existence in scientific practice of entities which are explicitly held not to be real, but which nonetheless serve a purpose—convenient fictions.
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Joseph Priestley, co-discoverer of the element oxygen, which he called "dephlogisticated air" In 1702, German chemist Georg Stahl coined the name "phlogiston" for the substance believed to be released in the process of burning. Around 1735, Swedish chemist Georg Brandt analyzed a dark blue pigment found in copper ore. Brandt demonstrated that the pigment contained a new element, later named cobalt. In 1751, a Swedish chemist and pupil of Stahl's named Axel Fredrik Cronstedt, identified an impurity in copper ore as a separate metallic element, which he named nickel.
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Many times the question of exactly which event should qualify as the moment of discovery is difficult to answer. One of the most famous examples of this is the question of the discovery of oxygen. While Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Joseph Priestley were able to concentrate oxygen in the laboratory and characterize its properties, they did not recognize it as a component of air. Priestly actually thought it was missing a hypothetical component of air, known as phlogiston, which air was supposed to absorb from materials that are being burned.
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Schofield, Vol. 2, 98; quotation from Thorpe, 171. He also invented and described cheap and easy-to-assemble experimental apparatus. His colleagues therefore believed that they could easily reproduce Priestley's experiments to verify them or to answer the questions that had puzzled him.Schofield, Vol. 1, 259–69; Jackson, 110–14; Thorpe, 76–77; 178–79; Uglow, 229–39. Although many of his results puzzled him, Priestley used phlogiston theory to resolve the difficulties. This theory, however, led him to conclude that there were only three types of "air": "fixed", "alkaline", and "acid".
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18, No. 1 (Jul., 1932), pp. 77-102. > Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of > Science Society Although his research and personal philosophy clearly has its roots in the alchemical tradition, Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the founders of modern chemistry. It was by examining the part played by the air in processes of calcination and burning that it became possible to give approximately complete descriptions of these processes, which led to the gradual scientific rejection of Phlogiston.
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In his teachings and writing on the philosophy of science, he drew heavily on those of his Harvard colleague Willard Van Orman Quine. Conant contributed four chapters to the 1957 Harvard Case Histories in Experimental Science, including an account of the overthrow of the phlogiston theory. In 1951, he published Science and Common Sense, in which he attempted to explain the ways of scientists to laymen. Conant's ideas about scientific progress would come under attack by his own protégés, notably Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
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A crystal sphere (also known as a crystal shell) is a gigantic spherical shell which contains an entire planetary system. Each sphere varies in size but typically they are twice the diameter of the orbit of the planet that is farthest from the sun or planet at the center of the sphere (the system's primary). The surface of the sphere is called the "sphere wall" and separates the void of "wildspace" (within the sphere) from the "phlogiston" (that surrounds and flows outside the sphere). The sphere wall has no gravity and appears to be impossible to damage by any normal or magical means.
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In response, Nature later published a letter detailing inaccurate claims made by AIDS denialists in their attacks on the Declaration, and a second satirical letter from two AIDS researchers, stating: "We are staunch believers in the right to free speech, but is Nature the appropriate place to militate in favour of the pre-Copernican model of the universe or the existence of phlogiston?" In 2008, independent estimates by public health experts attributed over 300,000 preventable South African AIDS deaths and nearly 200,000 new HIV infections to government policies based on the AIDS denialist assertions criticised by the Durban Declaration.
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In 1758, Joseph Black formulated the concept of latent heat to explain the thermochemistry of phase changes. In 1766, English chemist Henry Cavendish isolated hydrogen, which he called "inflammable air". Cavendish discovered hydrogen as a colorless, odourless gas that burns and can form an explosive mixture with air, and published a paper on the production of water by burning inflammable air (that is, hydrogen) in dephlogisticated air (now known to be oxygen), the latter a constituent of atmospheric air (phlogiston theory). In 1773, Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele discovered oxygen, which he called "fire air", but did not immediately publish his achievement.
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During this time he ran experiments late into the night and read the works of Nicolas Lemery, Caspar Neumann, Johann von Löwenstern- Kunckel and Georg Ernst Stahl (the champion of the phlogiston theory). Much of Scheele's later theoretical speculations were based upon Stahl. In 1765 Scheele worked under the progressive and well informed apothecary, C. M. Kjellström in Malmö, and became acquainted with Anders Jahan Retzius who was a lecturer at the University of Lund and later a professor of chemistry at Stockholm. Scheele arrived in Stockholm between 1767 and 1769 and worked as a pharmacist.
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Engraving on the title page of Scheele's Chemical Treatise on Air and Fire (1777) (d. Königl. Schwed. Acad. d. Wissenschaft Mitgliedes, Chemische Abhandlung von der Luft und dem Feuer)Scheele achieved astonishingly prolific and important results without the expensive laboratory equipment to which his Parisian contemporary Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier was accustomed. Through the studies of Lavoisier, Joseph Priestley, Scheele, and others, chemistry was made a standardized field with consistent procedures. Although Scheele was unable to grasp the significance of his discovery of the substance that Lavoisier later named oxygen, his work was essential for the abandonment of the long-held theory of phlogiston.
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In 1781 he published his second book, (Physical-chemical pamphlets), which contributed to opening a new way to the theory of acidity. Between 1787 and 1788 Guyton de Morveau and Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier tried to convince Landriani to change over to the new chemistry, but he never was able to decide between phlogiston and oxygen. After 1790 he dealt exclusively with chemical applications of electric phenomena, and the improvement of physics and meteorology instruments. During his career he enjoyed a popularity comparable only to that of Alessandro Volta and Lazzaro Spallanzani, of all Italian scientists of that time.
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Lavoisier and Berthollet, Chimistes Celebres, Liebig's Extract of Meat Company Trading Card, 1929 Lavoisier employed the new nomenclature in his Traité élémentaire de chimie (Elementary Treatise on Chemistry), published in 1789. This work represents the synthesis of Lavoisier's contribution to chemistry and can be considered the first modern textbook on the subject. The core of the work was the oxygen theory, and the work became a most effective vehicle for the transmission of the new doctrines. It presented a unified view of new theories of chemistry, contained a clear statement of the law of conservation of mass, and denied the existence of phlogiston.
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He submitted his findings of the composition of water to the Académie des Sciences in April 1784, reporting his figures to eight decimal places. Opposition responded to this further experimentation by stating that Lavoisier continued to draw the incorrect conclusions and that his experiment demonstrated the displacement of phlogiston from iron by the combination of water with the metal. Lavoisier developed a new apparatus which utilized a pneumatic trough, a set of balances, a thermometer, and a barometer, all calibrated carefully. Thirty savants were invited to witness the decomposition and synthesis of water using this apparatus, convincing many who attended of the correctness of Lavoisier's theories.
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Senebier also correctly concluded that plants use the carbon in carbon dioxide as a nutriment. Senebier did some of his research jointly with fellow Swiss naturalist François Huber. Senebier arrived at his best known achievement, his demonstration that plants take up atmospheric carbon dioxide and give off oxygen, based entirely on the phlogiston theory of chemistry, and only in his later works did he reformulate his conclusions in terms of the more modern, oxygen chemistry developed by Antoine Lavoisier and colleagues. This discovery by Senebier regarding gases ranks as one of the last of the important early discoveries in the unraveling of the fundamental chemical processes of photosynthesis.
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Semmelweis 1861:45 The positivistic contempt for theoretical deliberations is evident in these two quotations. The first from the highly celebrated anatomist Rudolf Virchow who said, "Explorers of nature recognize no bugbears other than individuals who speculate" From his Collected Papers on Scientific Medicine quoted in Semmelweis (1861):228 (translator Carter's note 75) , and Johann Lucas Boër said: "If every century could produce one physician as observant (as Hippocrates) rather than so many who are educated in theoretical systems, how much more would have been achieved for humanity and for animal life generally". quoted in Semmelweis (1861):228 (translator Carter's note 76) (For an example of an earlier dead-end speculative theory that had halted scientific development, see phlogiston).
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These included a red-hot iron gun barrel which was designed to have water run through it and decompose, and an alteration of the apparatus which implemented a pneumatic trough at one end, a thermometer, and a barometer. The precision of his measurements was a requirement in convincing opposition of his theories about water as a compound, with instrumentation designed by himself implemented in his research. Despite having precise measurements for his work, Lavoisier faced a large amount of opposition in his research. Proponents of phlogiston theory, such as Keir and Priestley, claimed that demonstration of facts was only applicable for raw phenomena, and that interpretation of these facts did not imply accuracy in theories.
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In the history of chemistry, fire air was postulated to be one of two fluids of common air. This theory was positioned in 1775 by Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele. In Scheele’s Chemical Treatise on Air and Fire he states: "air is composed of two fluids, differing from each other, the one of which does not manifest in the least the property of attracting phlogiston, whilst the other, which composes between the third and fourth part of the whole mass of the air, is peculiarly disposed to such attraction." These two constituents of common air Scheele called Foul Air ("verdorbene Luft") and Fire Air ("Feuerluft"); afterwards these components came to be known as nitrogen and oxygen, respectively.
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Scheele's study of the gas not yet named oxygen was prompted by a complaint by Torbern Olof Bergman, a professor at Uppsala University who would eventually become Scheele's friend. Bergman informed Scheele that the saltpeter he had purchased from Scheele's employer, after long heating, produced red vapors (now known to be nitrogen dioxide) when it came into contact with acetic acid. Scheele's quick explanation was that the saltpeter had absorbed phlogiston with the heat (had been reduced to nitrite, in modern terms) and gave off a new phlogisticated gas as an active principle when combined with an acid (even a weak acid). Bergman next suggested that Scheele analyze the properties of manganese (IV) oxide.
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All of the researchers noted Cavendish's production of pure water by burning hydrogen in oxygen, but they interpreted the reaction in varying ways within the framework of phlogiston theory. Lavoisier learned of Cavendish's experiment in June 1783 via Charles Blagden (before the results were published in 1784), and immediately recognized water as the oxide of a hydroelectric gas. In cooperation with mathematician Pierre Simon de Laplace, Lavoisier synthesized water by burning jets of hydrogen and oxygen in a bell jar over mercury. The quantitative results were good enough to support the contention that water was not an element, as had been thought for over 2,000 years, but a compound of two gases, hydrogen and oxygen.
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In 1749 she completed the French translation of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (the Principia), including her derivation of the notion of conservation of energy from its principles of mechanics. Published ten years after her death, her translation and commentary of the Principia contributed to the completion of the scientific revolution in France and to its acceptance in Europe. Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze and her husband Antoine Lavoisier rebuilt the field of chemistry, which had its roots in alchemy and at the time was a convoluted science dominated by George Stahl's theory of phlogiston. Paulze accompanied Lavoisier in his lab, making entries into lab notebooks and sketching diagrams of his experimental designs.
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The difficulty in precisely defining the time and place of the "discovery" of oxygen, within the context of the developing chemical revolution, is one of Thomas Kuhn's central illustrations of the gradual nature of paradigm shifts in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. During his lifetime, Priestley's considerable scientific reputation rested on his invention of carbonated water, his writings on electricity, and his discovery of several "airs" (gases), the most famous being what Priestley dubbed "dephlogisticated air" (oxygen). However, Priestley's determination to defend phlogiston theory and to reject what would become the chemical revolution eventually left him isolated within the scientific community. Priestley's science was integral to his theology, and he consistently tried to fuse Enlightenment rationalism with Christian theism.
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Much of the reasoning behind Antoine Lavoisier being named the "father of modern chemistry" and the start of the chemical revolution lay in his ability to mathematize the field, pushing chemistry to use the experimental methods utilized in other "more exact sciences." Lavoisier changed the field of chemistry by keeping meticulous balance sheets in his research, attempting to show that through the transformation of chemical species the total amount of substance was conserved. Lavoisier used instrumentation for thermometric and barometric measurements in his experiments, and collaborated with Pierre Simon de Laplace in the invention of the calorimeter, an instrument for measuring heat changes in a reaction. In attempting to dismantle phlogiston theory and implement his own theory of combustion, Lavoisier utilized multiple apparatuses.
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Other topical allusions include references to a performing monkey called Mr. Jacko, who appeared at Astley's Amphitheatre in Lambeth in July, a performing pig called Toby the Learned Pig, a Handel festival in Westminster Abbey in August, lectures on phlogiston, exhibitions of the microscope, and the Golden Square parties of Chevalier d'Eon.Ackroyd (1995: 91–92) Especially important in dating the text is Miss Gittipin's reference to Miss Filligree; "theres Miss Filligree work she goes out in her coaches & her footman & her maids & Stormonts & Balloon hats & a pair of Gloves every day & the sorrows of Werter & Robinsons & the Queen of Frances Puss colour." Stormonts were a type of hat popular in the early 1780s but falling out of fashion by 1784.
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Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier by Jules Dalou 1866 Lavoisier's fundamental contributions to chemistry were a result of a conscious effort to fit all experiments into the framework of a single theory. He established the consistent use of the chemical balance, used oxygen to overthrow the phlogiston theory, and developed a new system of chemical nomenclature which held that oxygen was an essential constituent of all acids (which later turned out to be erroneous). Lavoisier also did early research in physical chemistry and thermodynamics in joint experiments with Laplace. They used a calorimeter to estimate the heat evolved per unit of carbon dioxide produced, eventually finding the same ratio for a flame and animals, indicating that animals produced energy by a type of combustion reaction.
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236 His participation in the collection of its taxes did not help his reputation when the Reign of Terror began in France, as taxes and poor government reform were the primary motivators during the French Revolution. Lavoisier consolidated his social and economic position when, in 1771 at age 28, he married Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, the 13-year-old daughter of a senior member of the Ferme générale. She was to play an important part in Lavoisier's scientific career—notably, she translated English documents for him, including Richard Kirwan's Essay on Phlogiston and Joseph Priestley's research. In addition, she assisted him in the laboratory and created many sketches and carved engravings of the laboratory instruments used by Lavoisier and his colleagues for their scientific works.
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However, he was hampered by lack of news from Europe; unaware of the latest scientific developments, Priestley was no longer on the forefront of discovery. Although the majority of his publications focused on defending the outmoded phlogiston theory against the "new chemistry", he also did some original work on spontaneous generation and dreams. As Robert Schofield, Priestley's major modern biographer, explains: > Priestley published more scientific items during his decade in the United > States than during all his years in England: some 45 papers, not counting > reprintings, and four pamphlets, not counting subsequent editions, but in > general his science was now anticlimactic. Few of his papers contributed > anything significantly new to the field of chemistry; most were committed to > combatting the new chemistry.
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The chemical revolution was a period in the 18th century marked by significant advancements in the theory and practice of chemistry. Despite the maturity of most of the sciences during the scientific revolution, by the mid-18th century chemistry had yet to outline a systematic framework or theoretical doctrine. Elements of alchemy still permeated the study of chemistry, and the belief that the natural world was composed of the classical elements of earth, water, air and fire remained prevalent.Olby, (1990), p. 265. The key achievement of the chemical revolution has traditionally been viewed as the abandonment of phlogiston theory in favour of Antoine Lavoisier's oxygen theory of combustion;See H. Butterfield, "Chapter 11" of The Origins of Modern Science: 1300-1800 (New York: Macmillan, 1957) for this traditional view.
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For an electronic copy of volume 3, see He discontinued it upon becoming convinced of the weakness of his theory of phlogiston. On 20 May 1790, Keir communicated to the Royal Society "Experiments and Observations on the Dissolution of Metals in Acids, and their Precipitations, with an Account of a new compound Acid Menstruum, useful in some technical operations of parting metals". This paper contains suggestions which may have contributed to the discovery of the electro-plate process. It was translated into German later the same year by Augustin Gottfried Ludwig Lentin as Versuche und Beobachtungen über die Auflösung der Metalle in Säuren ... About 1794, Keir and Blair purchased land in the Tividale area, on the borders of Dudley and Tipton, on which they established the Tividale colliery.
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Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) Mesmerism is the medical system proposed in the late eighteenth century by the Viennese-trained physician, Franz Anton Mesmer (1734–1815), for whom it is named. The basis of this doctrine was Mesmer's claimed discovery of a new aetherial fluid, animal magnetism, which, he contended, permeated the universe and the bodies of all animate beings and whose proper balance was fundamental to health and disease.; Animal magnetism was but one of series of postulated subtle fluids and substances, such as caloric, phlogiston, magnetism, and electricity, which then suffused the scientific literature.; It also reflected Mesmer's doctoral thesis, De Planatarum Influxu ("On the Influence of the Planets"), which had investigated the impact of the gravitational effect of planetary movements on fluid-filled bodily tissues.
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He later became professor of experimental physics at the University of Naples, of which he was first director of physics. His best known work is represented by the six volumes of the Elements of Experimental Physics, which had numerous editions and reprints and was modified and integrated on several occasions by Poli himself. The work was used by Alessandro Volta for his university lectures and was even read and studied by Giacomo Leopardi. It has also been criticized by Vincenzo Dandolo, as in the 1790s it still introduced phlogiston in the part relating to chemical reactions (volume III), which had already been widely recognized as non-existent by most scientists (the part relating to chemical reactions was preceded by an introduction by Dandolo himself, which explained the partial defects of the work).
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This work presented three long tracks that well exemplify some of the aspects of their art: the gothic droning of "Phlogiston", the ambient-electronica of "Desiderium", and the cosmic doodling of the 47 minutes long title track. "Language of Flames and Sound", released on Italian label Old Europa Cafe in 1996, continued to chronicle the group's evolution into more abstract domains. In late 1996, as the group was about to break into the growing experimental electronica scene, one member of the band, Helge S. Moune, decided to quit, leaving Knappe and his other partner to continue as the duo Troum. "Mort aux Vaches", a symphony in three movements and the group's installment in Staalplaat's series of experimental electronica, and "Emotional Engramm" (on Iris Light), probably their most accessible recording, were both released posthumous in 1997.
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The demonstrations of the principle led alternatives theories obsolete, like the phlogiston theory that claimed that mass could be gained or lost in combustion and heat processes. The conservation of mass was obscure for millennia because of the buoyancy effect of the Earth's atmosphere on the weight of gases. For example, a piece of wood weighs less after burning; this seemed to suggest that some of its mass disappears, or is transformed or lost. This was not disproved until careful experiments were performed in which chemical reactions such as rusting were allowed to take place in sealed glass ampoules; it was found that the chemical reaction did not change the weight of the sealed container and its contents. Weighing of gases using scales was not possible until the invention of the vacuum pump in 17th century.
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During the 18th century, thermodynamics was developed through the theories of weightless "imponderable fluids", such as heat ("caloric"), electricity, and phlogiston (which was rapidly overthrown as a concept following Lavoisier's identification of oxygen gas late in the century). Assuming that these concepts were real fluids, their flow could be traced through a mechanical apparatus or chemical reactions. This tradition of experimentation led to the development of new kinds of experimental apparatus, such as the Leyden Jar; and new kinds of measuring instruments, such as the calorimeter, and improved versions of old ones, such as the thermometer. Experiments also produced new concepts, such as the University of Glasgow experimenter Joseph Black's notion of latent heat and Philadelphia intellectual Benjamin Franklin's characterization of electrical fluid as flowing between places of excess and deficit (a concept later reinterpreted in terms of positive and negative charges).
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Called the most fundamental chemical discovery of the 18th century, Lavoisier discovered the principle of conservation of mass. His ideas made the phlogiston theory of combustion obsolete.Gratzer 2005, p. 56. In 1790, George Fordyce recognized calcium as necessary for the survival of fowl. In the early 19th century, the elements carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen were recognized as the primary components of food, and methods to measure their proportions were developed. In 1816, François Magendie discovered that dogs fed only carbohydrates (sugar), fat (olive oil), and water died evidently of starvation, but dogs also fed protein survived—identifying protein as an essential dietary component.Gratzer 2005, pp. 73–74. William Prout in 1827 was the first person to divide foods into carbohydrates, fat, and protein. In 1840, Justus von Liebig discovered the chemical makeup of carbohydrates (sugars), fats (fatty acids) and proteins (amino acids).
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The changes made in the editions of the following years were to deny the existence of phlogiston even in his own work. Thanks to his many travels, which put him in contact and correspondence with authoritative exponents of the international scientific world, he published numerous essays on various topics: not only relating to physics, but also to meteorology, in particular with the treatises on thunder (1772) and on lightning (1773), geology and zoology. Testimony of this last discipline remains the monumental Testacea utriusque Siciliane eorumque istoria et antome tabulis aeneis, a description of the molluscs of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, begun with the help of his assistant Stefano Delle Chiaje, who collaborated in its publication. Poli was responsible for the discovery of the interradial vesicles of the water vascular system of echinoderms, which are known as "Polian vesicles".
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As a result of this stimulating intellectual environment, he published several important scientific papers, including "Experiments relating to Phlogiston, and the seeming Conversion of Water into Air" (1783). The first part attempts to refute Lavoisier's challenges to his work on oxygen; the second part describes how steam is "converted" into air. After several variations of the experiment, with different substances as fuel and several different collecting apparatuses (which produced different results), he concluded that air could travel through more substances than previously surmised, a conclusion "contrary to all the known principles of hydrostatics".Qtd. in Schofield (2004), 167 This discovery, along with his earlier work on what would later be recognised as gaseous diffusion, would eventually lead John Dalton and Thomas Graham to formulate the kinetic theory of gases.Schofield (2004), 168; see also Jackson 203–08; Gibbs, 154–61; Uglow, 358–61.
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Churchland believes that beliefs are not ontologically real; that is, he believes that a future, fully matured neuroscience is likely to have no need for "beliefs" (see propositional attitudes), in the same manner that modern science discarded such notions as legends or witchcraft. According to Churchland, such concepts will not merely be reduced to more finely grained explanation and retained as useful proximate levels of description, but will be strictly eliminated as wholly lacking in correspondence to precise objective phenomena, such as activation patterns across neural networks. He points out that the history of science has seen many posits once considered real entities, such as phlogiston, caloric, the luminiferous ether, and vital forces, thus eliminated. Moreover, in The Engine of Reason, The Seat of the Soul Churchland asserts his belief that consciousness might be explained in terms of a recurrent neural network with its hub in the intralaminar nucleus of the thalamus, and feedback connections to all parts of the cortex.
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In an article published in 1868, English inventor and polymath Fleeming Jenkin described myriad hypotheses of physics that had been put forth involving imponderable fluids: > Leibniz mentions with great disapproval a certain Hartsoeker who supposed > that atoms moved in an ambient fluid, though the idea is not unlike his own. > It is difficult to trace the origin of the hypothesis, but Galileo and > Hobbes both speak of a subtle ether. The conception of an all-pervading > imponderable fluid of this kind has formed part of many theories, and ether > came to be very generally adopted as a favourite name for the fluid, but > caloric was also much thought of as a medium. We even find half-a-dozen > imponderable co-existent fluids regarded with favour,—one called heat, > another electricity, another phlogiston, another light, and what not, with > little hard atoms swimming about, each endowed with forces of repulsion and > attraction of all sorts, as was thought desirable.
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While living in Bristol, Davy met the Earl of Durham, who was a resident in the institution for his health, and became close friends with Gregory Watt, James Watt, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey, all of whom became regular users of nitrous oxide (laughing gas), to which Davy became addicted. The gas was first synthesized in 1772 by the natural philosopher and chemist Joseph Priestley, who called it phlogisticated nitrous air (see phlogiston). Priestley described his discovery in the book Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (1775), in which he described how to produce the preparation of "nitrous air diminished", by heating iron filings dampened with nitric acid. Sir Humphry Davy's Researches chemical and philosophical: chiefly concerning nitrous oxide (1800), pages 556 and 557 (right), outlining potential anaesthetic properties of nitrous oxide in relieving pain during surgery James Watt built a portable gas chamber to facilitate Davy's experiments with the inhalation of nitrous oxide.
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Dmitri Mendeleev Modern chemistry emerged from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries through the material practices and theories promoted by alchemy, medicine, manufacturing and mining. A decisive moment came when "chemistry" was distinguished from alchemy by Robert Boyle in his work The Sceptical Chymist, in 1661; although the alchemical tradition continued for some time after his work. Other important steps included the gravimetric experimental practices of medical chemists like William Cullen, Joseph Black, Torbern Bergman and Pierre Macquer and through the work of Antoine Lavoisier ("father of modern chemistry") on oxygen and the law of conservation of mass, which refuted phlogiston theory. The theory that all matter is made of atoms, which are the smallest constituents of matter that cannot be broken down without losing the basic chemical and physical properties of that matter, was provided by John Dalton in 1803, although the question took a hundred years to settle as proven.
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The theory of phlogiston (a substance at the root of all combustion) was propounded by the German Georg Ernst Stahl in the early 18th century and was only overturned by the end of the century by the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, the chemical analogue of Newton in physics; who did more than any other to establish the new science on proper theoretical footing, by elucidating the principle of conservation of mass and developing a new system of chemical nomenclature used to this day. Before his work, though, many important discoveries had been made, specifically relating to the nature of 'air' which was discovered to be composed of many different gases. The Scottish chemist Joseph Black (the first experimental chemist) and the Dutchman J.B. van Helmont discovered carbon dioxide, or what Black called 'fixed air' in 1754; Henry Cavendish discovered hydrogen and elucidated its properties and Joseph Priestley and, independently, Carl Wilhelm Scheele isolated pure oxygen. English scientist John Dalton proposed the modern theory of atoms; that all substances are composed of indivisible 'atoms' of matter and that different atoms have varying atomic weights.
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For example, "Chemistry" goes into great detail on an obsolete system of what would now be called alchemy, in which earth, air, water and fire are named elements containing various amounts of phlogiston. Tytler also describes the architecture of Noah's Ark in detail (illustrated with a copperplate engraving) and, following Bishop Ussher, includes a remarkably precise chronology for the Earth, beginning with its creation on 23 October 4004 B.C. and noting that the Great Flood of 2348 B.C. lasted for exactly 777 days. The 2nd edition also reports a cure for tuberculosis: and a somewhat melancholy article on "Love" that persisted in the Britannica for nearly a century (until its 9th edition): Like the first edition, the second was sold in sections by subscription at the printing shop of Colin MacFarquhar. When finished in 1784, complete sets were sold at Charles Elliot's book shop in Edinburgh for 10 pounds, unbound. Over 1,500 copies of the second edition were sold this way by Elliot in less than one year,The Great EB, the story of Encyclopædia Britannica, Herman Kogan, p.
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He speculated that "inflammable air" was in fact identical to the hypothetical substance called "phlogiston" and further finding in 1781 that the gas produces water when burned. He is usually given credit for the discovery of hydrogen as an element. In 1783, Antoine Lavoisier gave the element the name hydrogen (from the Greek ὑδρο- hydro meaning "water" and -γενής genes meaning "creator") when he and Laplace reproduced Cavendish's finding that water is produced when hydrogen is burned. Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier Lavoisier produced hydrogen for his experiments on mass conservation by reacting a flux of steam with metallic iron through an incandescent iron tube heated in a fire. Anaerobic oxidation of iron by the protons of water at high temperature can be schematically represented by the set of following reactions: : Fe + H2O → FeO + H2 :2 Fe + 3 H2O → Fe2O3 \+ 3 H2 :3 Fe + 4 H2O → Fe3O4 \+ 4 H2 Many metals such as zirconium undergo a similar reaction with water leading to the production of hydrogen. Hydrogen was liquefied for the first time by James Dewar in 1898 by using regenerative cooling and his invention, the vacuum flask.
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