The Pneumatic Experiments, Part Deux

A quick recap, then we jump back into the birth of a science with experiments on “air”

Author’s note: I know it’s been a while. To all those who’ve hung around, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Since it’s been a minute, let’s revisit what’s happened so far in the journey that is the birth of a science…

The best place to start is to know that the word chemistry didn’t exist at the time when most scholars accept that the science was born. In other words, the dudes (sorry ladies, but as far as we know it was dudes at this time) that were performing chemistry didn’t know that what they were doing was called chemistry. To be fair, I shouldn’t even use the word science because in the time scales we’re talking about here, science is a relatively new word as well. “Collection of studies” is probably a more accurate term for what we’re trying to get at. The collection of studies that later became know as chemistry were primarily concerned with “elements,” or substances that could not be converted into anything else (the purest substances). Notably it was Aristotle that came up with what I call the “Captain Planet elements”: earth, water, wind, and fire. And, apparently, because Aristotle said it, it must be true, so that line of thinking persisted for thousands of years.

With that theory in place, not much advancement occurred in terms of chemical theory. There was, however, a group of individuals who didn’t concern…