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Fire is a chemical reaction between fuel and oxygen that releases heat energy. In the 17th and 18th centuries, phlogiston was believed to be the cause of combustion until Lavoisier’s oxidation theory replaced it. Oxygen’s discovery by Priestley and Lavoisier’s publication of the first modern table of elements were important discoveries.
Fire is the result of a chemical reaction that occurs when fuel and oxygen react and release heat energy. When fuel is heated, it releases gases, unless it is already in gas form. In that case, the molecules in the gas separate and react with the oxygen. This chemical reaction is known as combustion. Although we now know how substances ignite and burn, the facts were not well understood by 17th and 18th century scientists. At the time, anything that burned was believed to contain an invisible substance known as phlogiston. The term “phlogiston” was first used by the German physician Johann Joachim Becher in 17 and further developed by the chemist Georg Ernst Stahl. Stahl developed the theory that phlogiston was materially uniform in all bodies containing it and was released into the air during combustion and calcination. The phlogiston theory was replaced by the oxidation theory of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier. The concepts discussed by Lavoisier were revolutionary, which is why many call him the founder of modern chemistry.
Read more about 18th century chemistry:
The term “phlogiston” comes from the Greek word for “flammable”.
One of the most important discoveries of the time was the discovery of oxygen by Joseph Priestley in 1774. This discovery helped scientists explain how things burn.
The first modern table of elements was published by Lavoisier in his textbook Elements of Chemistry in 1789.
