Which famous 18th century English theologian and chemist? - Qfak.com Qfak.com Which famous 18th century English theologian and chemist? pioneered the discovery of oxygen Answers Joseph Priestley. He wasn't, by the way, a famous theologian but simply a nonconformist minister. He grew up a presbyterian, but converted to unitarianism later in life. He obviously studied theology, but made no independent contribution to the subject. His lasting fame is entirely due to his chemical researches. #1 Swedish pharmacist Carl Wilhelm Scheele. He discovered it in 1772 (although folks had been breathing it for centuries along with the various other gases in the atmosphere, it wasn't until the 18th century folks actually learned about it). The Englishman Joseph Priestley deiscovered it independently two years later. At that time no one knew of Scheele's work.

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In 1810, he published an article with the title Essai d'une manière de déterminer les masses relatives des molécules élémentaires des corps, et les proportions selon lesquelles elles entrent dans ces combinaisons ("Essay on Determining the Relative Masses of the Elementary Molecules of Bodies and the Proportions by Which They Enter These Combinations"), which contains Avogadro's hypothesis. Humphry Davy. Sir Humphry Davy (17 December 1778 – 29 May 1829) was an English chemist and inventor.[1] He is best remembered today for his discoveries of several alkali and alkaline earth metals, as well as contributions to the discoveries of the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine. Berzelius called Davy's 1806 Bakerian Lecture On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity[2] "one of the best memoirs which has ever enriched the theory of chemistry. Jöns Jacob Berzelius.

Jöns Jacob Berzelius (Swedish: [jœns ˌjɑːkɔb bæɹˈseːliɵs]; 20 August 1779 – 7 August 1848) was a Swedish chemist. Pierre Jean Robiquet. Pierre Jean Robiquet (13 January 1780 – April 1840) was a French chemist. He laid founding work in identifying amino acids, the fundamental bricks of proteins. Michael Faraday. Michael Faraday, FRS (22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English scientist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include those of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis. As a chemist, Faraday discovered benzene, investigated the clathrate hydrate of chlorine, invented an early form of the Bunsen burner and the system of oxidation numbers, and popularised terminology such as anode, cathode, electrode, and ion. Faraday ultimately became the first and foremost Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, a lifetime position.

Faraday was an excellent experimentalist who conveyed his ideas in clear and simple language; his mathematical abilities, however, did not extend as far as trigonometry or any but the simplest algebra. Johan August Arfwedson. Johan August Arfwedson (12 January 1792 – 28 October 1841) was a Swedish chemist who discovered the chemical element lithium in 1817 by isolating it as a salt. Joseph Black. Henry Cavendish. Henry Cavendish FRS (10 October 1731 – 24 February 1810) was a British natural philosopher, scientist, and an important experimental and theoretical chemist and physicist. Cavendish is noted for his discovery of hydrogen or what he called "inflammable air".[1] He described the density of inflammable air, which formed water on combustion, in a 1766 paper "On Factitious Airs". Antoine Lavoisier later reproduced Cavendish's experiment and gave the element its name. Antoine Lavoisier.

Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier (also Antoine Lavoisier after the French Revolution; 26 August 1743 – 8 May 1794; French pronunciation: ​[ɑ̃twan lɔʁɑ̃ də lavwazje]) was a French nobleman and chemist central to the 18th-century Chemical Revolution and a large influence on both the histories of chemistry and biology.[1] He is widely considered to be the "Father of Modern Chemistry. "[2] It is generally accepted that Lavoisier's great accomplishments in chemistry largely stem from the fact that he changed the science from a qualitative to a quantitative one. Lavoisier is most noted for his discovery of the role oxygen plays in combustion. Joseph Priestley. Joseph Priestley FRS (24 March [O.S. 13 March] 1733 – 6 February 1804) was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works.

He is usually credited with the discovery of oxygen, having isolated it in its gaseous state, although Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Antoine Lavoisier also have a claim to the discovery.[2] During his lifetime, Priestley's considerable scientific reputation rested on his invention of soda 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. Carl Wilhelm Scheele. Carl Wilhelm Scheele (9 December 1742 – 21 May 1786) was a Swedish Pomeranian pharmaceutical chemist. Isaac Asimov called him "hard-luck Scheele" because he made a number of chemical discoveries before others who are generally given the credit. Alessandro Volta. Early life and works[edit] Volta was born in Como, a town in present-day northern Italy (near the Swiss border) on February 18, 1745.

In 1774, he became a professor of physics at the Royal School in Como. A year later, he improved and popularized the electrophorus, a device that produced static electricity. His promotion of it was so extensive that he is often credited with its invention, even though a machine operating on the same principle was described in 1762 by the Swedish experimenter Johan Wilcke.[3][4] In the years between 1776–78, Volta studied the chemistry of gases. Mikhail Lomonosov. Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov (Russian: Михаи́л Васи́льевич Ломоно́сов, IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ləmɐˈnosəf] ( ); November 19 [O.S. November 8] 1711 – April 15 [O.S. John Dalton.

HISTORY OF CHEMISTRY Enjoy the Famous Daily Van Helmont: 1648 A book is published in Amsterdam in 1648 which can be seen as a definitive turning point between alchemy and chemistry. Entitled Ortus Medicinae (Origin of Medicine), it is the collected papers of Jan Baptista van Helmont, an aristocrat who has lived quietly on his estate near Brussels conducting scientific experiments. Van Helmont is inclined to mysticism. He believes in alchemy and in the philosopher's stone which, if found, could turn base metals into gold. But he also conducts experiments on entirely scientific principles. Some, like his famous five-year project with a willow tree, lead him to the wrong conclusion. But the method is valid. Van Helmont weighs out 200 lbs of dried earth, places it in an earthenware container and plants a willow tree weighing 5 lbs. For five years he waters the plant daily. At the end of the experiment the willow tree weighs 169lbs and the earth, when dried, not much less than 200 lbs.

Van Helmont concludes, reasonably that the wood, bark and leaves of the tree must be composed of water, which he therefore considers to be the chief constituent of all matter. He is half right - any willow tree is about 50% water. What van Helmont is unaware of is that the tree has also absorbed carbon and oxygen, as carbon dioxide or CO2, from the air. Ironically, Van Helmont himself becomes the first scientist to postulate the existence of carbon dioxide. He burns 62 lbs of charcoal and finds that he is left with only 1 lb of ash. What has happened to the rest? Van Helmont is convinced, ahead of his time, of the indestructibility of matter. Indeed he is able to demonstrate that metal dissolved in acid can be recovered without loss of weight. So he now reasons that the missing 61 lbs have escaped in the form of an airy substance to which he gives the name gas sylvestre (wood gas). The identity of this wood gas is not discovered until a century later (by Joseph Black ), but van Helmont is the first to have suggested the existence of gaseous substances other than air.

It is he who coins the word 'gas' - deriving it from Chaos (sounding similar in Flemish), which is used in Greek mythology to mean the original emptiness before creation. The principles of experiment enter chemistry in the work of van Helmont, and are developed by another aristocrat fascinated by the puzzles of science - Robert Boyle. Robert Boyle: 1661-1666 The experimental methods of modern science are considerably advanced by the work of Robert Boyle during the 1660s. He is skilful at devising experiments to test theories, though an early success is merely a matter of using von Guericke 's air pump to create a vacuum in which he can observe the behaviour of falling bodies. He is able to demonstrate the truth of Galileo 's proposition that all objects will fall at the same speed in a vacuum. But Boyle also uses the air pump to make significant discoveries of his own - most notably that reduction in pressure reduces the boiling temperature of a liquid (water boils at 100° at normal air pressure, but at only 46°C if the pressure is reduced to one tenth). Boyle's best-known experiment involves a U-shaped glass tube open at one end.

Air is trapped in the closed end by a column of mercury. Boyle can show that if the weight of mercury is doubled, the volume of air is halved. The conclusion is the principle known still in Britain and the USA as Boyle's Law - that pressure and volume are inversely proportional for a fixed mass of gas at a constant temperature. Boyle's most famous work has a title perfectly expressing a correct scientific attitude. The Sceptical Chymist appears in 1661. Boyle is properly sceptical about contemporary theories on the nature of matter, which still derive mainly from the Greek theory of four elements . His own notions are much closer to the truth. Indeed it is he who introduces the concept of the element in its modern sense, suggesting that such entities are 'primitive and simple, or perfectly unmingled bodies'. Elements, as he imagines them, are 'corpuscles' of different sorts and sizes which arrange themselves into compounds - the chemical substances familiar to our senses. Compounds, he argues, can be broken down into their constituent elements. Boyle's ideas in this field are further developed in his Origin of Forms and Qualities (1666).

Chemistry is Boyle's prime interest, but he also makes intelligent contributions in the field of pure physics. In an important work of 1663, Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours, Boyle argues that colours have no intrinsic identity but are modifications in light reflected from different surfaces. (This is demonstrated within a few years by Newton in his work on the spectrum.) As a man of his time, Boyle is as much interested in theology as science. It comes as a shock to read his requirements for the annual Boyle lecture which he founds in his will. Instead of discussing science, the lecturers are to prove the truth of Christianity against 'notorious infidels, viz., atheists, theists, pagans, Jews and Mahommedans'. The rules specifically forbid any mention of disagreement among Christian sects. The phlogiston theory: 18th century Two natural processes, burning and rusting, particularly intrigue the chemists of the 17th and 18th centuries. A concept is put forward in 1667 in Germany in a book by Johann Joachim Becher. explaining such changes as the release of a particular substance, present in all materials which are capable of changes of this kind.

The theory was developed by George Ernst Stahl, who in a 1702 edition of Becher's work gave the mystery substance the name phlogiston - from the Greek phlogizein, to set alight. Stahl is correct in his link between burning and rusting, for each depends on oxidization (a chemical reaction with oxygen). But experimental evidence immediately provides a stumbling block for the phlogiston theory. If phlogiston is a substance released both in burning and rusting, then the resulting ash and rust should weigh either the same as or less than the weight lost by the original object (there is much debate as to the weight or weightlessness of phlogiston). But experiments reveal that oxygen-rich rust is heavier than unrusted iron, while ash is much lighter than the burnt organic material. Yet this difficulty is not enough to prevent most scientists believing in the existence of phlogiston, until Lavoisier and the discovery of oxygen finally disprove the case. Demons in the ore: 1742-1751 From the mid-18th century there is rapid acceleration in the discovery of new elements, as chemists improve their analytical methods in the laboratory.

These substances are not at first recognized as elements (a concept only firmly established in the 19th century), but in each case it is evident that a previously unidentified material has been isolated. Two of the earliest in this series of discoveries take place in Sweden. Both involve the analysis of familiar metallic ores, and both acquire their lasting names from the superstitions of German miners. Miners in the Harz mountains have often been frustrated by a substance which appears to be copper ore but which, when heated, yields none of the expected metal. Even worse, it emits noxious fumes. The miners blame this on the influence of a spirit, the mischievous kobold, and the name becomes attached to this kind of ore. The only use found for the residue of such ore after roasting is in the making of glass, to which it adds a beautiful blue colour. In about 1735 Georg Brandt is able to show in his Swedish laboratory that the blue derives from a previously unknown metal. The mischievous spirit has been identified, and Brandt gives its name to the new substance - as cobalt. A similar demon is blamed by miners in Saxony for another ore which yields a brittle substance instead of copper.

In German a Nickel is a dwarfish troublemaker, and the miners call the disappointing ore Kupfernickel (copper scamp). The impurity in ore of this type is analyzed in Sweden in 1751 by Axel Cronstedt. He identifies its components as arsenic and a previously unknown hard white metal, quite distinct from copper. Following the example of Brandt, he honours the offending demon in the naming of the new substance and calls it nickel. Several other new metallic elements are isolated in the following decades. But the main focus of research moves now to the gases. Joseph Black and fixed air: 1754-1756 Joseph Black presents his doctoral thesis to the university of Edinburgh in 1754 and publishes it in expanded form two years later as Experiments upon Magnesia Alba, Quicklime, and Some Other Alcaline Substances. The experiments which he describes are a classically complete series of compound transformations of calcium, carbon and oxygen - though it is not as yet possible to express his results in these terms.

Black has observed that if he heats chalk (calcium carbonate), he gets quicklime (calcium oxide) and a gas, the presence of which he can identify by its weight. Unwilling as yet to speculate on its identity, he calls it fixed air - because it exists in solid form until released. As a next stage, Black demonstrates that he can reverse the process. Mixing water with the quicklime, he gets a substance (slaked lime) whch will take up the fixed air again - leaving him with his original amount of chalk and the water. In other experiments Black is able to show that this same unknown gas, his fixed air, is produced as a result of burning charcoal, of fermentation and of breathing. He demonstrates this last point to his students by breathing through a tube into a jar of limewater (a clear solution of slaked lime). The liquid turns cloudy as grains of chalk form in it. Black's fixed air is the gas sylvestre of which the existence has been postulated by van Helmont a century earlier. Its composition as carbon dioxide is not discovered until the 1780s, when Lavoisier achieves it by burning carbon in oxygen.

Black's proof that such a gas exists prompts an energetic search for others. Hydrogen is identified by Cavendish in 1766, and oxygen almost simultaneously by Scheele and Priestley in the 1770s. Meanwhile Black has observed another important scientific principle, latent heat . Cavendish and hydrogen:1766 In 1766 Henry Cavendish presents his first paper to the Royal Society. Under the title Factitious Airs he describes his experiments with two gases. One is the 'fixed air' identified by Joseph Black . The other is a gas which Cavendish calls 'inflammable air', soon to be given the name hydrogen by Lavoisier . Hydrogen has been observed as a phenomenon for at least two centuries. The 16th-century alchemist and charlatan Paracelsus finds that the dissolving of a metal in acid releases a form of air which will burn. But Cavendish is the first to identify it as specific substance. He believes that he has found the inflammable essence, phlogiston .

The study of gases in the laboratory is by now a standard chemical process thanks to the pneumatic trough developed in the early part of the 18th century by Stephen Hales. An upturned vessel, full of water, stands in a shallow trough of water. Gas is collected in the top of the vessel, displacing water and being sealed in by it. With this device Cavendish is able to calculate the specific gravity of hydrogen. He finds that it is one fourteenth that of common air (it is the lightest substance known). Within less than two decades of his observation, a dramatic use is found for this very light new gas - in ballooning . Priestley and oxygen: 1774 Joseph Priestley, a nonconformist minister, is employed as librarian from about 1773 in an English nobleman's house, Bowood in Wiltshire. He is provided with a laboratory to carry out his chemical researches. And he has recently acquired a large 12-inch lens, with which he can focus intense heat on chemical substances. In August 1774 he directs his lens at some mercury oxide.

He discovers that it gives off a colourless gas in which a candle burns with an unusually brilliant light. Experimenting further with this gas, he records a few months later that 'two mice and myself have had the privilege of breathing it'. The mice were presumably offered the privilege first. Priestley has isolated oxygen. He foresees a medical use for it ('it may be peculiarly salutary for the lungs in certain cases'), but he does not fully appreciate its chemical significance - largely because he believes in the phlogiston theory . He calls the new gas 'dephlogisticated air', on the assumption that the phlogiston has been removed from it. In October 1774, visiting Paris with his noble patron, he describes his discovery to a gathering of French scientists. Among them is Lavoisier , who develops Priestley's experiments in his own laboratory and realizes that he has the evidence to disprove the phlogiston theory. Priestley meanwhile isolates a great many other gases. Though he is the first to publish his discovery of oxygen, he has in fact been preceded in the identification of both oxygen and nitrogen by the Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele.

Scheele separates air in 1773 into two gases which he calls 'fire air' (oxygen) and 'foul air (nitrogen). His findings only become known with the publication of his book Air and Fire in 1777, but it is established that the experiments date from four years earlier. Like Priestley, Scheele is handicapped by his belief in the phlogiston theory . When isolating hydrogen, he concludes - as has Cavendish - that it is pure phlogiston. Cavendish and water: 1784 During the last three decades of the 18th century, with more and more chemical substances becoming identified, there is great interest in which of them may be elements - in Boyle 's sense of being pure substances unmixed with anything else. Of the four ancient Greek elements , earth is clearly no longer a candidate. Air is separated in 1773 by Scheele into oxygen and nitrogen. Water receives its dismissal from the club at Cavendish's hands in a paper entitled Experiments in Air (1784).

Cavendish mixes hydrogen and oxygen, in the proportion 2:1, in a glass globe through which he passes an electric spark. The resulting chemical reaction leaves him with water, which stands revealed as a compound (H2O). Lavoisier: 1777-1794 Although Antoine Laurent Lavoisier has no single glamorous discovery to add lustre to his name (such as postulating the first gas , or identifying oxygen), he is regarded as the father of modern chemistry. The reason is that during the last two decades of the 18th century he interprets the findings of his colleagues with more scientific clarity than they have mustered, and creates the rational framework within which chemistry can develop. He gives evidence of this in his response to Priestley's discovery of ' dephlogisticated air '. He undertakes a series of experiments which reveal the involvement of this new gas in the processes where phlogiston has been assumed to play a key role. He is able to show that Priestley's gas is involved in chemical reactions in the processes of burning and rusting, and that it is transformed in both burning and breathing into the ' fixed air ' discovered by Joseph Black.

His researches with phosphorus and sulphur cause him to believe that the new gas is invariably a component of acids. He therefore gives it in 1777 the name oxygen (from the Greek for 'acid maker'). On a similar principle Lavoisier coins the word hydrogen ('water maker') for the very light gas isolated by Cavendish . With these two names chemistry takes a clear and decisive step into the modern era. It is an advance which Lavoisier soon consolidates. With three other French colleagues Lavoisier publishes in 1787 Méthode de nomenclature chimique (Method of Chemical Nomenclature). Their scheme, soon universally accepted, sweeps away the muddled naming of substances which has descended from alchemy and replaces it with a logical system of classification. This is an achievement of French rationalism comparable to the metric system, in the planning of which Lavoisier is also involved. In 1789 Lavoisier follows this book on chemical methodology with the related fruits of his own researches - Traité élémentaire de chimie (Elementary Treatise of Chemistry). In this he attempts a list of the known elements.

Lavoisier names more than thirty elements, which he defines - in the tradition begun by Boyle a century earlier - as substances which can be broken down no further by any known method of analysis. The majority are metals, but there are by now three gases which Lavoisier identifies as elements - oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen (which he calls azote, 'without life'). Lavoisier is immensely active in public affairs, in addition to his scientific work. Unfortunately his tasks have included, under the ancien régime , membership of the ferme générale or tax authority. By the time of the Terror , in 1794, it makes little difference that Lavoisier has been on the liberal and reformist side on contemporary issues. An order is given for the arrest of all the former members of the ferme générale. In May 1794, in a trial lasting only part of a day, twenty-eight of them including Lavoisier appear before a revolutionary tribunal. Condemned to death, they are guillotined that same afternoon.

A colleague of Lavoisier, who has worked with him on the commission to introduce the metric system, comments: 'It took only a moment to cut off that head; a century may not be enough to produce another like it.' Joseph Priestley, Co-discovery of Oxygen - Timeline Index Joseph Priestley, Co-discovery of Oxygen Joseph Priestley, Co-discovery of Oxygen Joseph Priestley was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works. He is usually credited with the discovery of oxygen, having isolated it in its gaseous state, although Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Antoine Lavoisier also have a claim to the discovery. During his lifetime, Priestley's considerable scientific reputation rested on his invention of soda 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.

More on this Website A New Chart of History - Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc. Description: First edition of Joseph Priestly's rare broadside chart of history, dedicated to his friend, Benjamin Franklin. Priestly's chart is generally regarded as the most influential time line of the 18th Century. Offered here in the exceedingly rare first edition. Joseph Priestley, FRS (1733 – 1804) was an 18th-century English theologian, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works. He is generally credited with the discovery of oxygen. Among his major accomplishments were: the invention of soda water writings on electricity discovery of several "airs" (gases), the most famous being what Priestley dubbed "dephlogisticated air" (oxygen). Priestley believed that a proper understanding of the natural world would promote human progress and eventually bring about the Christian Millennium. Priestley, who strongly believed in the free and open exchange of ideas, advocated toleration and equal rights for religious dissenters, which also led him to help found Unitarianism in England.

The controversial nature of Priestley's publications combined with his outspoken support of the French Revolution aroused public and governmental suspicion, and Priestley was eventually forced to flee, in 1791, first to London, and then to the United States, after a mob burned down his home and church. He spent the last ten years of his life living in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. Priestley also made significant contributions to pedagogy, including the publication of a seminal work on English grammar, books on history, and he prepared some of the most influential early timelines. Priestley considered the study of history to be essential for worldly success as well as religious growth. He wrote histories of science and Christianity in an effort to reveal the progress of humanity and, paradoxically, the loss of a pure, "primitive Christianity". Priestley believed this chart would "impress" upon students "a just image of the rise, progress, extent, duration, and contemporary state of all the considerable empires that have ever existed in the world". Priestley argued that the education of the young should anticipate their future practical needs. He recommended modern languages instead of classical languages and modern rather than ancient history.

Priestley's lectures on history were particularly revolutionary; he narrated a providentialist and naturalist account of history, arguing that the study of history furthered the comprehension of God's natural laws. Furthermore, his millennial perspective was closely tied to his optimism regarding scientific progress and the improvement of humanity. He believed that each age would improve upon the previous and that the study of history allowed people to perceive and to advance this progress. Since the study of history was a moral imperative for Priestley, he also promoted the education of middle-class women. Priestley designed two Charts to serve as visual study aids for his Lectures, this New Chart of History and his Chart of Biography, which was published in 1765. These charts have been described as the most influential timelines published in the 18th century. Condition Description: Original Color. Several long tears, repaired on verso.

Related Categories: Joseph Priestley, Discoverer of Oxygen National Historic Chemical Landmark - American Chemical Society American Chemical Society Joseph Priestley, Discoverer of Oxygen Joseph Priestley and the Discovery of Oxygen International Historic Chemical Landmark Dedicated August 1, 1994, at the Joseph Priestley House in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, USA, and August 7, 2000, at Bowood House in Wiltshire, UK. Landmark Lesson Plan: Joseph Priestley, Discoverer of Oxygen When Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen in 1774, he answered age-old questions of why and how things burn. An Englishman by birth, Priestley was deeply involved in politics and religion, as well as science. When his vocal support for the American and French revolutions made remaining in his homeland dangerous, Priestley left England in 1794 and continued his work in America until his death. Contents “Joseph Priestley Discoverer of Oxygen” commemorative booklet produced by the National Historic Chemical Landmarks program of the American Chemical Society in 2004 (PDF).

About Joseph Priestley Some 2,500 years ago, the ancient Greeks identified air — along with earth, fire and water — as one of the four elemental components of creation. That notion may seem charmingly primitive now. But it made excellent sense at the time, and there was so little reason to dispute it that the idea persisted until the late 18th century. It might have endured even longer had it not been for a free-thinking English chemist and maverick theologian named Joseph Priestley. Priestley (1733-1804) was hugely productive in research and widely notorious in philosophy. He invented carbonated water and the rubber eraser, identified a dozen key chemical compounds, and wrote an important early paper about electricity. His unorthodox religious writings and his support for the American and French revolutions so enraged his countrymen that he was forced to flee England in 1794. He settled in Pennsylvania, where he continued his research until his death. The world recalls Priestley best as the man who discovered oxygen, the active ingredient in our planet's atmosphere.

In the process, he helped dethrone an idea that dominated science for 23 uninterrupted centuries: Few concepts "have laid firmer hold upon the mind," he wrote, than that air "is a simple elementary substance, indestructible and unalterable." In a series of experiments culminating in 1774, Priestley found that "air is not an elementary substance, but a composition," or mixture, of gases. Among them was the colorless and highly reactive gas he called "dephlogisticated air," to which the great French chemist Antoine Lavoisier would soon give the name "oxygen." It is hard to overstate the importance of Priestley's revelation. Scientists now recognize 92 naturally occurring elements-including nitrogen and oxygen, the main components of air. They comprise 78 and 21 percent of the atmosphere, respectively. Engraving of Joseph Priestley by Charles Turner, after a painting by Henry Fuseli. Courtesy The Edgar Fahs Smith Memorial Collection, The University of Pennsylvania Libraries. Understanding the Composition of Air In the mid-18th century, the concept of an element was still evolving.

Researchers had distinguished no more than two dozen or so elements, depending on who was doing the counting. It wasn't clear how air fit into that system. Nobody knew what it was, and researchers kept finding that it could be converted into such a variety of forms that they routinely spoke of different "airs." The principal method for altering the nature of air, early chemists learned, was to heat or burn some compound in it. The second half of the 1700s witnessed an explosion of interest in such gases. The steam engine was in the process of transforming civilization, and scientists of all types were fascinated with combustion and the role of air in it. British chemists were especially prolific. In 1754, Joseph Black identified what he called "fixed air" (now known to be carbon dioxide) because it could be returned, or fixed, into the sort of solids from which it was produced.

In 1766, a wealthy eccentric named Henry Cavendish produced the highly flammable substance Lavoisier would name hydrogen, from the Greek words for "water maker." Finally in 1772, Daniel Rutherford found that when he burned material in a bell jar, then absorbed all the "fixed" air by soaking it up with a substance called potash, a gas remained. Rutherford dubbed it "noxious air" because it asphyxiated mice placed in it. Today, we call it nitrogen. But none of those revelations alone tells the whole story. The next major discovery would come from a man whose early life gave no indication that he would become one of the greatest experimental chemists in history. Back to top Bubbling Beverages In 1767, Priestley was offered a ministry in Leeds, Englane, located near a brewery. This abundant and convenient source of "fixed air” — what we now know as carbon dioxide — from fermentation sparked his lifetime investigation into the chemistry of gases. He found a way to produce artificially what occurred naturally in beer and champagne: water containing the effervescence of carbon dioxide.

The method earned the Royal Society's coveted Copley Prize and was the precursor of the modern soft-drink industry. Oxygen and Other Discoveries in England Joseph Priestley was born in Yorkshire, the eldest son of a maker of wool cloth. His mother died after bearing six children in six years. Young Joseph was sent to live with his aunt, Sarah Priestley Keighley, until the age of 19. She often entertained Presbyterian clergy at her home, and Joseph gradually came to prefer their doctrines to the grimmer Calvinism of his father. Before long, he was encouraged to study for the ministry. And study, as it turned out, was something Joseph Priestley did very well. Aside from what he learned in the local schools, he taught himself Latin, Greek, French, Italian, German and a smattering of Middle Eastern languages, along with mathematics and philosophy. This preparation would have been ideal for study at Oxford or Cambridge, but as a Dissenter (someone who was not a member of the Church of England) Priestley was barred from England's great universities. So he enrolled at Daventry Academy, a celebrated school for Dissenters, and was exempted from a year of classes because of his achievements.

After graduation, he supported himself, as he would for the rest of his life, by teaching, tutoring and preaching. His first full-time teaching position was at the Dissenting Academy in Warrington. (Although obviously brilliant, original, outspoken and, by one report, of "a gay and airy disposition," Priestley had an unpleasant voice and a sort of stammer. That he made a living through lectures and sermons is further evidence of his extraordinary nature.) In 1762, he was ordained and married Mary Wilkinson, the daughter of a prominent iron-works owner. She was, he noted, "of an excellent understanding, much improved by reading, of great fortitude and strength of mind, and of a temper in the highest degree affectionate and generous; feeling strongly for others and little for herself." Priestley traveled regularly to London, and became acquainted with numerous men of science and independent thought, including an ingenious American named Benjamin Franklin, who became a lifelong friend. Franklin encouraged Priestley in his research, one result of which was The History and Present State of Electricity. For that work, and his growing reputation as an experimenter, Priestley was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1766.

The History book was too tough for a popular audience, and Priestley determined to write a more accessible one. But he could find no one to create the necessary illustrations. So, in typical fashion, he taught himself perspective drawing. Along the way, he made many mistakes, and discovered that India rubber would erase lead pencil lines — a fact he mentioned in the preface. By the age of 34, Priestley was a well-established and respected member of Britain's scientific community. He was still paying a price for his religious nonconformity, however. When the explorer Captain James Cook was preparing for his second voyage, Priestley was offered the position of science adviser. But the offer was rescinded under pressure from Anglican authorities who protested his theology, which was evolving into a strongly Unitarian position that denied the doctrine of the trinity. In retrospect, the Cook affair may have been all for the best. In 1773, the Earl of Shelburne asked Priestley to serve as a sort of intellectual companion, tutor for the earl's offspring, and librarian for his estate, Bowood House.

The position provided access to social and political circles Priestley could never have gained on his own, while leaving ample free time for the research that would earn him a permanent place in scientific history. He systematically analyzed the properties of different "airs" using the favored apparatus of the day: an inverted container on a raised platform that could capture the gases produced by various experiments below it. The container could also be placed in a pool of water or mercury, effectively sealing it, and a gas tested to see if it would sustain a flame or support life. In the course of these experiments, Priestley made an enormously important observation. A flame went out when placed in a jar in which a mouse would die due to lack of air. Putting a green plant in the jar and exposing it to sunlight would "refresh" the air, permitting a flame to burn and a mouse to breathe. Perhaps, Priestley wrote, "the injury which is continually done by such a large number of animals is, in part at least, repaired by the vegetable creation." Thus he observed that plants release oxygen into the air — the process known to us as photosynthesis. On August 1, 1774, he conducted his most famous experiment.

Using a 12-inch-wide glass "burning lens," he focused sunlight on a lump of reddish mercuric oxide in an inverted glass container placed in a pool of mercury. The gas emitted, he found, was "five or six times as good as common air." In succeeding tests, it caused a flame to burn intensely and kept a mouse alive about four times as long as a similar quantity of air. Priestley called his discovery "dephlogisticated air" on the theory that it supported combustion so well because it had no phlogiston in it, and hence could absorb the maximum amount during burning. (The year before, Swedish apothecary Carl Wilhelm Scheele isolated the same gas and observed a similar reaction. Scheele called his material "fire air." But his findings were not published until 1777.) Whatever the gas was called, its effects were remarkable. "The feeling of it in my lungs," Priestley wrote, "was not sensibly different from that of common air, but I fancied that my breast felt peculiarly light and easy for some time afterwards. Who can tell but that in time, this pure air may become a fashionable article in luxury.

Hitherto only two mice and myself have had the privilege of breathing it." Back to top Phlogiston and Fire In the mid-18th century, the most pressing issue in chemistry and physics was to determine what exactly happens when something burns. The prevailing theory was that flammable materials contained a substance called “phlogiston” (from the Greek word for burn) that was released during combustion. The theory held that when a candle burned, for example, phlogiston was transferred from it to the surrounding air. When the air became saturated with phlogiston and could contain no more, the flame went out. Breathing, too, was a way to remove phlogiston from a body. A typical test for the presence of phlogiston was to place a mouse in a container and measure how long it lived. When the air in the container could accept no more phlogiston, the mouse would die. The 19th century scientist Antoine Lavoisier disproved the existence of phlogiston and helped to form the basis of modern chemistry using Joseph Priestley’s discovery of oxygen. Pneumatic trough and other equipment used by Joseph Priestley in his experiments on oxygen and other gases.

Reproduced from Joseph Priestley's book Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air, 1774-1786. Religion and Emigration to America As luck would have it, Lord Shelburne was setting off on a trip to the European continent and took Priestley along. In France, Priestley met Lavoisier and described his discovery. It turned out to be the clue Lavoisier needed to develop his theory of chemical reactions — the "revolution" in chemistry that would finally dispel the phlogiston theory. Burning substances, Lavoisier argued, did not give off phlogiston; they took on Priestley's gas, which Lavoisier called "oxygen" from the Greek word for acid-maker. By then, however, Priestley had returned to England, where he escalated his support for the American Revolution and for highly unorthodox religious views. Those positions were a source of embarrassment for Lord Shelburne. Priestley left his service in 1780, moving to Birmingham and taking a position as head of a liberal congregation called New Meeting.

His new location brought him into contact with numerous luminaries including Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles, the great architect of evolutionary theory. James Watt and Matthew Boulton — who were about to transform society with their steam engine — were there, as was Josiah Wedgwood, the famous potter, who supported Priestley's chemical experiments. Birmingham also boasted a distinguished scientific discussion group, the Lunar Society, which met on nights of a full moon so that the members could see their way home. Priestley's encouragement of the French Revolution, together with his increasingly controversial theology and attacks on the doctrine of the trinity, eventually became too notorious for safety. In 1791, an alcohol-fueled mob of royalists burned the New Meeting house, and then Priestley's home. The scientist and his family barely escaped. They fled to London, but eventually it proved no safer. Priestley's sons could not find work and emigrated to Pennsylvania, where they hoped to found a center for free-thinking Englishmen. Finally Joseph and Mary followed them, setting sail for America on April 8, 1794.

Priestley turned down the offer of a teaching position at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and instead built a house in the remote hamlet of Northumberland to be near his sons. The area was decidedly rustic. There Priestley continued his research, isolating carbon monoxide (which he called "heavy inflammable air") and founding the Unitarian Church in the United States. For the most part, he led a quiet and reflective life — especially after his friend Thomas Jefferson was elected president in 1800. During his final trip to Philadelphia, he told the Philosophical Society that "having been obliged to leave a country which has been long distinguished by discoveries in science, I think myself happy by my reception in another which is following its example, and which already affords a prospect of its arriving at equal eminence." His words proved prophetic. A colloquium held on the centennial of Priestley's discovery of oxygen led to the founding of the American Chemical Society —today the world's largest scientific society — in 1876. On February 3, 1804, Priestley began an experiment, but found himself too weak to continue. He went to his bed in his library, never again to emerge.

On February 6, he summoned one of his sons and an assistant. He dictated some changes in a manuscript. When he was satisfied with the revisions, he said "That is right. I have now done." Minutes later he died painlessly, ending what Jefferson called "one of the few lives precious to mankind." Anti-Priestley cartoon reading "Doctor Phlogiston, The Priestley politician or the Political Priest!" Reproduced courtesy of the Library of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Portrait of Joseph Priestley (undated). Reproduced courtesy of the Library of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Landmark Designation and Acknowledgments Landmark Designation The American Chemical Society dedicated the Joseph Priestley House a National Historic Chemical Landmark on August 1, 1994. The plaque commemorating the event reads: Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) — Unitarian minister, teacher, author, natural philosopher, discoverer of oxygen, and friend of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson — supervised the construction of this house and laboratory from 1794 to 1798, then lived and worked here until his death in 1804.

His library of some 1,600 volumes and his chemical laboratory, where he first isolated carbon monoxide, were probably the best in the country at that time. As suggested by Edgar Fahs Smith in 1920, the Joseph Priestley House has become "a Mecca for all who would look back to the beginnings of chemical research" in America. The American Chemical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry dedicated the Discovery of Oxygen by Joseph Priestley an International Historic Chemical Landmark on August 7, 2000, in Wiltshire, UK. The plaque commemorating the event reads: Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) — Unitarian minister, teacher, author, and natural philosopher — was the Earl of Shelburne's librarian and tutor to his sons. In this room, then a working laboratory, Priestley pursued his investigations of gases. On 1 August 1774 he discovered oxygen. Twenty years later he emigrated to America where he continued his research at his home and laboratory in Northumberland, Pennsylvania.

Acknowledgments: Adapted for the internet from “The Joseph Priestley House,” produced by the National Historic Chemical Landmarks program of the American Chemical Society in 1994 and “Bowood House,” produced by the National Historic Chemical Landmarks program of the American Chemical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2000. Back to top Cite this Page American Chemical Society International Historic Chemical Landmarks. Discovery of Oxygen by Joseph Priestley. (accessed Month Day, Year). LibriVox Librivox Acoustical liberation of books in the public domain Menu LibriVox recordings are Public Domain in the USA. If you are not in the USA, please verify the copyright status of these works in your own country before downloading, otherwise you may be violating copyright laws. Joseph Priestley (1733 - 1804) Joseph Priestley, FRS (13 March 1733 (O.S.) – 6 February 1804) was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works.

He is usually credited with the discovery of oxygen, having isolated it in its gaseous state, although Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Antoine Lavoisier also have a claim to the discovery. During his lifetime, Priestley's considerable scientific reputation rested on his invention of soda 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. External Links

Question: Which famous 18th century English theologian and chemist pioneered the discovery of oxygen?
Answer: Joseph Priestley