Abstract
Both Lavoisier and Priestley were committed to the role of experiment and observation in their chemistry practice. According to Lavoisier the physical sciences embody three important ingredients; facts, ideas, and language, and Priestley would not have disagreed with this. Ideas had to be consistent with the facts generated from experiment and observation and language needed to be precise and reflect the known chemistry of substances. While Priestley was comfortable with a moderate amount of hypothesis making, Lavoisier had no time for what he termed theoretical speculation about the fundamental nature of matter and avoided the use of the atomic hypothesis and Aristotle’s elements in his Elements of Chemistry. In the preface to this famous work he claims he has good educational reasons for this position. While Priestley and Lavoisier used similar kinds of apparatus in their chemistry practice, they came to their task with completely different worldviews as regards the nature of chemical reactivity. This paper examines these worldviews as practiced in the famous experiment on the composition of air and the implications of this for chemistry education are considered.
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Notes
Mercury is the only metal which imbibes air and releases air within the temperature range of the Bunsen burner.
In modern terms the reaction is represented as: Fe(s) + H2O(g) → FeO(s) + H2(g).
Pb3O4 in modern terms.
PbO in modern terms; massicot was well known to the French as a mineral used in painting.
One should note here that PbO doesn’t liberate oxygen on heating whereas PbO2 and Pb3O4 (PbO2.2PbO) do liberate oxygen.
Azote in French; azoto in Italian; azot in Polish.
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The author would like to thank one of the reviewers of the manuscript for directing his attention to the work of J. Bradley in the School Science Review.
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de Berg, K. Teaching Chemistry for All Its Worth: The Interaction Between Facts, Ideas, and Language in Lavoisier’s and Priestley’s Chemistry Practice: The Case of the Study of the Composition of Air. Sci & Educ 23, 2045–2068 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-014-9712-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-014-9712-z