|
2002 marks the 269th anniversary of the discovery of oxygen by Joseph Priestley (1733–1804), an English clergyman and self-taught chemist. In 1774, during an experiment, Priestley noticed that mercuric oxide, when heated, yielded a gas that made a candle burn much faster, and that it would support respiration. He called this previously unidentified gas "dephlogisticated air." It was the French who later coined the less complicated term "oxygen," which means "acid-former." |
 |
2002 marks the 269th anniversary of the discovery of oxygen by Joseph Priestley (1733–1804), an English clergyman and self-taught chemist. In 1774, during an experiment, Priestley noticed that mercuric oxide, when heated, yielded a gas that made a candle burn much faster, and that it would support respiration. He called this previously unidentified gas "dephlogisticated air." It was the French who later coined the less complicated term "oxygen," which means "acid-former."
Twenty years after he discovered oxygen, Priestley moved to Northumberland, Pennsylvania, at the suggestion of friend Benjamin Franklin. In his new laboratory, which was rather sophisticated for its day, he became the first to isolate carbon monoxide. His library was equally impressive; he had amassed roughly 1,600 volumes of chemical research before his death in 1804. In 1920, Edgar Fahs Smith referred to Priestley's residence as "a Mecca for all who would look back to the beginnings of chemical research" in America.
The American Chemical Society designated the Priestley House as a National Historic Chemical Landmark on August 1, 1994. Six years later, ACS and Britain's Royal Society of Chemistry designated the actual site of Priestley's discovery of oxygen—Bonwood House in Calne, Wiltshire—as an International Historic Chemical Landmark.
In addition to being considered the father of modern chemistry, Priestley also is referred to today as the king of serendipity, because he literally stumbled across some of the most important scientific discoveries of all time.
To learn more about Joseph Priestley, please visit:
About oxygen:
|
|
