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Paracelsus challenged the the Greek idea of everything being made from, fire, earth, air, and water. Saying that the earth was made of salt, sulfur and mercury (quicksilver). -
Written by Robert Boyle, the books signifies the transitions between alchemy to chemistry. Boyle was not interested in the money making of the field but rather just sharing the knowledge that he had learned from his experiments. -
Johann Becher explained that destructive power of fire was caused by an entity named Phlogiston. Consuming the scientific community paralyzing the discovery of new elements.
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Hennig Brand discovered Phosphorus through turning urine into a paste and heating it to high temperatures for days. He discovered it by accident while trying to make gold. -
Robert Boyle putting half a grain of phosphorus and 6x its weight of sulfur powder, rubbing it together he created fire. Finding the essential ingredients for a match.
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Chavendish also observed that when he set light to the gas, a liquid began to show up, being water. At this time water was known as a element not a compound like it actually is. Again Phlogiston was in the way of him recognizing this.
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Henry Cavendish added a metal(zinc) to an acid, bubbles beginning to rise from the zinc in which Cavendish collected the gas produce. Setting light to it he knew it was not like the air around us, naming it inflammable air, thinking it was Phlogiston when in reality it was Hydrogen.
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Joseph Priestley was interested in CO2 in breweries, he noticed that CO2 actually blew out the fire on a lit match, mixing it with water he created the first fizzy drink.
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Priestley performed an experiment with mercuric oxide in a test tube to collect gas that he could possibly let off, then filling it with mercury to track the gas. Again with the idea of Phlogiston in mind he called it Dephlogisticated Air. Later called Oxygen by Lavoisier.
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It was Lavoisier that was named the Father of Chemistry due to the recognizing oxygens importance. He was also the first scientist to define an element, also making a list of the elements 33 at the time. Dividing them into 4 categories. Also changing the names of the elements to make it universal. -
Antoine Lavoisier weighing everything during his experiments began to question Phlogiston due to how substances weighed more after applying heat, explaining it as the things absorbing some kind of air. Preforming Priestley's experiment in reverse discovering that the same out of air being absorbed when it was heated was being released when it was heated as well.
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Humphry Davy discovered potassium by separating potash with electricity