In 1772 , Antoine Laurent Lavoisier – sometimes referred to as the sire of modernistic chemistry – set worthful diamonds on fire .
When Lavoisier was hold , interpersonal chemistry was still not what you ’d call a science . Beliefs included the theory ofphlogiston – that all combustible material contain a fire - similar element ( called phlogiston ) that is bring out as it is burned , and is bring up by the surrounding melody . According to the theory , when the airwave became saturated with phlogiston to the spot it could n’t absorb any more , the flame would go out .
Lavoisier had different and less antediluvian idea , explore during experiments burningsulfur and P . He bang that both gained weightiness after burning , and believe that they coalesce with air to do so .
An experiment by English natural philosopher Joseph Priestley , heard of by Lavoisier , require heatingred mercurous oxide . The colourless gas that ensue from the experimentation was termed “ dephlogisticated melodic phrase " by Priestley , though Lavoisier would later on testify it to beoxygen .
As for the baseball field , at the timepeople believed them to be their own substance , unrelated to textile like coal and plumbago . Lavoisier , who was keen on break down fabric to their most canonic form , pack a diamond and rate it in a closed jolt filled with oxygen , assay to glow it using a giant magnifying glass to focalise the sun ’s rays .
Diamonds , despite their hardy reputation , can burn with a ready - enough supply of O . This is at odds with the theory of phlogiston , as it would surely cauterise in all types of zephyr if the burning element is incorporate within the diamond , and the air ( oxygen ) is not part of the summons . The diamond did bite . Antoine Lavoisier had aright mistrust it was made of carbon paper .
More importantly , for anyone who ca n’t see the virtual side of burn one of Earth ’s mostvaluable rocks , was the weight of his entire experimentation . Though the diamond had burned , the weight of the jar and its contents remain the same as before he went allSid from Toy Storyon the diamond .
He had sum up evidence , as with his other combustion experiments , that affair is neither create nor destroyed in chemical reactions , but isconserved . Just do n’t offer that line as conservation to somebody after their precious rhombus sets on ardor .
