Bernard Trevisan, at the age of fourteen, initiated his lifelong quest to discover the "philosopher's stone."  He was unrelenting in his endeavor and tested all manner of formulas in his attempt to produce gold.  Trevisan's 15th century "gold fever" prompted him to leave his native Italy and travel extensively.  His experiments included an eight-year (!) egg distillation and use of a multitude of processes on countless substances, repeating some experiments hundreds of times.  Trevisan’s theories include:  gold is a mature form of other more primitive elements, and the sun acts upon the earth to form metals.  He was one in a long line of alchemists who devoted his life and intellect to finding the formula for gold.  Centuries later, even Sir Isaac Newton, a respected scientist, was intensely interested in transmutation.

     A half a century later, after the death of Trevisan, a fanatical and colorful teacher, who named himself Paracelsus shunned the accepted pseudoscientific doctrines of the "masters" of his time and became the "Martin Luther" of the alchemists.  Political powers who feared his influence attempted to neutralize his affect on the "scientific" community.  Europe, at the time, was blossoming in many arenas, technologically, scientifically, and culturally.  Paracelsus represented a sector of intellectuals who rejected the superstitions and mysticism which pervaded past and current scientific thought to pursue a more “noble” quest for the “elixir of life,” a cure for mortality.  He was the first surgeon to write in his native tongue.  He traveled extensively and delved deeply into the varied cultures’ medical practices in the myriad of places he visited.  Paracelsus’s most significant contributions to science are that he dared to challenge the established system and strongly promoted the method of discovering truth through experimentation.  He also diverted the focus of the alchemists’ quest from transmutation to a search for cures for the ills that plagued humans.

     Becher, who lived more than a century after Paracelsus, burdened the scientific world with his “phlogiston” (Gr flubber).  He claimed that phlogiston was a substance which was given off quickly in the form of fire when an object or compound substance was burned, i.e., fire is a substance.  Even though phlogiston was hard for some of Becher’s contemporaries to wallow (so to speak), his theory persisted for more than a hundred years after its inception and pervaded and influenced scientific thought until Lavoisier exposed the theory as “chameleon-like.”  In other words, he demonstrated the manner in which the phlogiston theory had changed to accommodate and justify its existence in the face of contradictions and inconsistencies.  Although the wide-spread acceptance of phlogiston slowed scientific progress, it also prompted the systematic study of substances and therefore, had an indirect positive effect on the scientific process.

     True to form, Priestley joined the ranks of bold free-thinkers who faced personal adversity and persecution from those who clung steadfastly to the status quo beliefs of his day.  Influenced by Benjamin Franklin, Priestley began to experiment in science.  He had an affinity for studying gases, and some of his earlier successes included dissolving CO2 in water to create soda water, producing hydrochloric acid which became widely used in industry, and producing ammonia, which became useful in industry and fertilizers.  Priestley developed a proficient means of collecting gas.  In subsequent experiments, he discovered oxygen and that “common air” was probably composed of more than jut oxygen.  He generously shared the results of his experiments with his colleagues, including Lavoisier, who was able to duplicate those results.  Despite Priestley’s great scientific contributions, he was shunned and persecuted in his native Britain for his unorthodox religious and political beliefs.  Priestley emigrated to America where he was generally accepted and hailed as a scientific hero and given due credit for his life’s work.  Ironically, Priestley never renounced Becher’s bogus phlogiston theory.

Carol Howard
8/29/97
Chem 2H
Crucibles Chapt. 1-4 Summary

Julia Freewoman

Chemistry 2 Honors

Summary # 2

Summary # 2: Cavendish

Cavendish was the eccentric son of a nobleman. Although he was raised to go into politics, he actually shied away from public life and his wealth, preferring to live a simple life devoted to unlocking the secrets of chemistry.

Cavendish was not dogmatic like Priestley, and so he was much more scientific than most those around him, making discoveries in many ways because he redid most of his experiments. This also allowed him to let go of the pholiston theory, unlike Priestley. His first discovery was of hydrogen, although at first he and many of his contemporaries believed that it was pholiston itself. He discovered the gas not through some new technique, but by taking an anciently know behavior and investigating it fully. This discovery was made when he poured acid (sulfuric and hydraulic) over metals to create hydrogen gas. He then went a step further. After filling many bladders with the gas, and after removing much of the moisture from the gas, he weighed it, and found that it actually had a weight. This he believed then was pholiston.

After reading of Franklin’s, Boerhaave’s, and Priestley’s experiments and discoveries, Cavendish went back to his laboratory, where he continued his experiments with hydrogen, but this time he included oxygen. Soon enough he was hard at work, as slowly but surely his calculations began to validate each other as he removed all errors from his former calculations. Finally in January, 1784 he published his results; he had discovered that oxygen and hydrogen together created water.

At first the world was shocked and disbelieving¾ water a compound not an element? The foundation of life was made of two gases, impossible! But after he conducted his experiments for the world to see, there could be no doubt. Water was a compound. But that was not the real controversy. The controversy was over who actually deserved the credit for the discovery, Cavendish or Le Duc? Neither was actually interested in the fame, but Le Duc did believe that he should be credited because of an oral report he had given in June, 1783. Eventually the controversy calmed down, but after his death he was accused of stealing the credit. It was only later that it was proven that Cavendish had been the one to discover water.

Although he hated it, fame seemed to follow Cavendish around. As shy and reclusive as he was, he was too good a scientist not to be noticed by the world. Cavendish had many good qualities, but one of his less than likeable ones was his hate of women. He never married, and went to great lengths to be nowhere near women or even seeing them. Many a maid was fired for getting in her master’s way.

Cavendish made one other important discovery: nitrogen. Again, it was not because he had done something new, but because he looked further than anyone had before. From time to time, when he was trying to find out the amounts of the known gases in the air, some acid would form in the water. Most had ignored this, but Cavendish wanted to get the bottom of it. He found it was a reaction between oxygen and nitrogen during the passage of an electric spark through the electrometer. This discovery was ignored for a hundred years until Lord Rayleigh and Sir William Ramsey ran across the mention of an unabsorbed gas. From this they went on to discover some of the noble gases: argon, neon, krypton, and xenon.

Although his writings were made somewhat obscure by the squashing of the phlogiston theory, he changed with the times, and until the day he died continued delving into the world of science and discovery.