so he thought oxygen must be air with its phlogiston removed.
Made sense.
Codiscoveries
Carl Wilhelm Scheele discovered oxygen three years before Priestley,
but Priestley was first to publish.
Neither thought that oxygen disproved phlogiston theory
and both called it dephlogisticated air.
Antoine Lavoisier, however,
having read papers by Priestley and Cavendish
and personal letters from Scheele,
showed that dephlogisticated air had weight
and this weight was added to metals when rusted.
This overthrew phlogiston theory.
Combustion, breathing, and rusting
could now all be seen as degrees of oxydation.
Oxygène
Antoine Lavoisier named oxygène
“acid-former” in Greek
because he wrongly thought
it was required in the composition of acids.
Fire, breath, life itself
depends on the biting element in air.
Let it go to your head;
without it you are dead.
Too much, however,
can burn you up.
Phlogistón is “burning up” in Greek.
Antoine Lavoisier named the inert part of air azote for
“lifeless” in Greek, but in English we call it
nitrogen. The Scottish physician Daniel Rutherford discovered
nitrogen in 1772, it was isolated first by Joseph Priestley in
1774, and it was named by the French chemist Jean-Antoine Chaptal
in 1790 because it was found in nitric acid,
“nitre-forming” in Greek.
Phlogistón is “burning up” in Greek. Antoine Lavoisier named the inert part of air azote for “lifeless” in Greek, but in English we call it nitrogen. The Scottish physician Daniel Rutherford discovered nitrogen in 1772, it was isolated first by Joseph Priestley in 1774, and it was named by the French chemist Jean-Antoine Chaptal in 1790 because it was found in nitric acid, “nitre-forming” in Greek.
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