Robert Boyle (1627–1691) “Father of Chemistry” as the person who discovered that

the volume of a gas decreases with increasing pressure and vice versa—the famous
Boyle’s law. A leading scientist and intellectual of his day, he was a great proponent
of the experimental method.

Joseph Black (1728 – 1799) Noted for his fundamental work on latent and specific
heats and for his discovery of carbon dioxide.

It is during the early Glasgow years (1750-52) that it seems Black began his work on
the chemistry of "magnesia alba" (a basic magnesium carbonate), which he later
submitted for his MD thesis in Edinburgh, and which includes the discovery of what
we now call carbon dioxide - he called it "fixed air". These experiments involved the
very first careful gravimetric (weight) measurements on changes brought about when
heating magnesia alba (with release of CO2) and reacting the products with acids or
alkalis. This foreshadowed Lavoisier's work, and laid the foundation for modern
chemistry. (Because this work was submitted for a medical degree, Black also felt
obliged to include a section on magnesia alba as a purgative and antacid.)
On returning to Glasgow as professor in 1756, Black met up with James Watt (of
steam engine fame - then "mathematical instrument maker to the University"), and this
seems to have stimulated the next phase of his work involving the concept of latent
heat, and the first steps in calorimetry. Here again, it was the quantitative aspects of
his work which led to his discoveries, particularly in the careful measurement of
heat. "He waited with impatience for the winter" 1 in Glasgow so that he could do experiments
on the freezing and melting of water and water/alcohol mixtures that led to the concept of
latent heat of fusion. He did similar work establishing the idea of latent heats of vaporization,
leading to the general concept of heat capacity or specific heat. These early steps in
thermodynamics went on alongside James Watt's developments of improved steam engines,
and the two were in constant communication.

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.

Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) wasn’t in his laboratory investigating gases—he isolated and
characterized eight of them, including oxygen—this 18th-century British scientist was often
defending himself and his home against angry mobs.

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.“ (Phlogiston - a substance supposed by 18th-
century chemists to exist in all combustible bodies, and to be released in combustion.)

Priestley was a supporter of both the American and French Revolutions. He saw the latter as
the beginning of the destruction of all earthly regimes that would precede the Kingdom of
God, as foretold in the Bible. These freely expressed views were considered seditious by
English authorities and many citizens. In 1791 a mob destroyed his house and laboratory in
Birmingham. This episode and subsequent troubles made him decide to emigrate to the United
States. With his sons he planned to set up a model community on undeveloped land in
Pennsylvania, but like many such dreams, this one did not materialize. He and his wife did,
however, build a beautiful home equipped with a laboratory far up the Susquehanna River in
Northumberland, Pennsylvania.

In 1767, Priestley was offered a ministry in Leeds, England, 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.
Henry Cavendish (1731–1810) Cavendish, like many before him, noticed that
a gas was produced when zinc or iron was dropped into an acid. He called this
gas "inflammable air" (known today as hydrogen). Using his exacting
experimental skills, Cavendish was the first to distinguish this inflammable air
from ordinary air and to investigate its specific properties. He presented a
paper detailing his findings in 1766; distinguished for great accuracy and
precision in researches into the composition of atmospheric air, the properties
of different gases, the synthesis of water, the law governing electrical
attraction and repulsion, and calculations of the density (and hence the weight)
of the Earth. His experiment to weigh Earth has come to be known as
the Cavendish experiment.

Born in Nice, France to an aristocratic English family, was an avid and

excellent experimenter. At the age of forty, he inherited an immense fortune
that afforded him the luxury of pursuing his scientific interests (he was
described by some as the "richest of all the learned and the most learned of all
the rich"). He was an extraordinarily odd man, whose extreme shyness
rendered him a virtual recluse. Despite this, he is remembered as a great, albeit
humble, man who devoted his life to science. For all of his scientific genius,
Cavendish was a pronounced eccentric. He rarely left his house except for
weekly meetings of the Royal Society, and even there, despite being one of the
most famous scientists of his time, he was known to linger outside the meeting room
and enter only when he thought no one would notice. He could barely tolerate the
company of women; if any of his female servants happened to cross his path, she was
likely to be fired. Though enormously wealthy, he was reputed to own but one suit,
and an old-fashioned one at that.
Cavendish lived a lonely and humble life, committed to the cultivation of science. To
him, science was measurement, and he showed himself to be one of the most
respected experimentalists of the time. His death was as lonely as his life; when he
sensed that the end was near, he instructed his servant to leave the room and not come
back until a certain time. When the servant returned, he found that Cavendish had
died.

Antoine Lavoisier (Untwan lavwuzeh) – one of the Fathers of Modern Chemistry

( Jöns Berzelius, Jabir ibn Hayyan (Geber), and John Dalton)
He established the law of conservation of mass, determined that combustion and
respiration are caused by chemical reactions with what he named “oxygen,” and
helped systematize chemical nomenclature, among many other accomplishments.

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.
Characteristic of Lavoisier’s chemistry was his systematic determination of the
weights of reagents and products involved in chemical reactions, including the
gaseous components, and his underlying belief that matter—identified by weight—
would be conserved through any reaction (the law of conservation of mass). Among
his contributions to chemistry associated with this method were the understanding of
combustion and respiration as caused by chemical reactions with the part of the air (as
discovered by Priestley) that he named “oxygen,” and his definitive proof by
composition and decomposition that water is made up of oxygen and hydrogen.

He married the daughter of another tax farmer, Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, who was
not quite 14 at the time. Madame Lavoisier prepared herself to be her husband’s
scientific collaborator by learning English to translate the work of British chemists
like Joseph Priestley and by studying art and engraving to illustrate Antoine-Laurent’s
scientific experiments.

Politics and the Guillotine

A political and social liberal, Lavoisier took an active part in the events leading to the
French Revolution, and in its early years he drew up plans and reports advocating
many reforms, including the establishment of the metric system of weights and
measures. Despite his eminence and his services to science and France, he came under
attack as a former farmer-general of taxes and was guillotined in 1794. A noted
mathematician, Joseph-Louis Lagrange, remarked of this event, “It took them only an
instant to cut off that head, and a hundred years may not produce another like it.”
A corrosive substance is one that will damage or destroy other substances with
which it comes into contact by means of a chemical reaction
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6

The International System of Units (SI), commonly known as the metric

system, is the international standard for measurement. The International Treaty
of the Meter was signed in Paris on May 20, 1875 by seventeen countries,
including the United States and is now celebrated around the globe as World
Metrology Day
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3
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4
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British Imperial System, traditional system of weights and measures used
officially in Great Britain from 1824 until the adoption of the metric
system beginning in 1965. The United States Customary System of weights
and measures is derived from it. British Imperial units are now legally defined
in metric terms.
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9
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0
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2
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3
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4
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5
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6
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7
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8
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9
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3
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4
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6

Water and oil

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7
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8
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9
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1
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2
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3
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4
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6
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9

⁰C to ⁰F = ⁰C x (9/5)
⁰F to ⁰C = (⁰F – 32) x (5/9)
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0
Fever is -100.4 F (38.0 C)
6
2

While it is possible for water to remain in a liquid form after it has reached
212 ⁰F, it becomes an unstable liquid. The instability of the liquid can make it
turn into a vapor more quickly and can produce steam. Steam that is rising
from a pot of boiling water is the result of water that has gone past the boiling
temperature and has turned into vapor. As a result, burns from steam that is
coming from a pot of boiling water because it is at a higher temperature than
the water itself.

When water goes from gas to liquid it is undergoing what is called a phase
change. Phase changes require a lot more energy than just a temperature
change. The energy required for water to go from a liquid to a gas is called the
heat of vaporization. When steam (water in the gas phase) hits your skin, a lot
of energy will be released as it condenses into a liquid, undergoing a phase
change. This energy release causes a much worse burn than if the same amount
of boiling water were to hit your skin where it would decrease in temperature
(to your skins temperature) but would not have to go through a phase change.
The loss of energy that is released from steam hitting your skin occurs quickly
and in a small localized area, therefore causing damage to your cells.
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3

Heat depends on the amount of matter present.

Specific heat - is a measure of how much heat is required to raise the
temperature of a substance.
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Systematic error - Values that are either all higher or all lower than the actual
value
Random Error - In the absence of systematic error, some values that are
higher and some that are lower than the actual value.