History of The Theory
In 1667, Johann Joachim Becher published his Physical Education, which was the first mention of what would become the phlogiston theory. Traditionally, alchemists considered that there were four classical elements: fire, water, air, and earth. 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. Terra pinguis was the element which 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. 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.
Read more about this topic: Phlogiston Theory
Famous quotes containing the words history of the, history of, history and/or theory:
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“The history of a soldiers wound beguiles the pain of it.”
—Laurence Sterne (17131768)
“The steps toward the emancipation of women are first intellectual, then industrial, lastly legal and political. Great strides in the first two of these stages already have been made of millions of women who do not yet perceive that it is surely carrying them towards the last.”
—Ellen Battelle Dietrick, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“... the first reason for psychologys failure to understand what people are and how they act, is that clinicians and psychiatrists, who are generally the theoreticians on these matters, have essentially made up myths without any evidence to support them; the second reason for psychologys failure is that personality theory has looked for inner traits when it should have been looking for social context.”
—Naomi Weisstein (b. 1939)