The Curious Rise and Fall of Phlogiston Theory

https://www.ihadnoclue.com/article/1079179457940717569

The phlogiston theory, proposed by Johann Joachim Becher in 1667 and refined by Georg Ernst Stahl in 1703, was an early attempt to explain combustion and related phenomena through a unified framework. This theory posited that flammable objects contained "phlogiston" (meaning "burning") that was released during combustion. For nearly a century, this theory dominated chemistry, elegantly explaining why fires extinguished in enclosed spaces and why metals transformed to powdery calx when heated. However, contradictions emerged—particularly that some metals gained weight when burned, contradicting the idea that they were losing something. Despite increasingly convoluted explanations to save the theory, Antoine Lavoisier disproved it between 1772 and 1783 through meticulous experiments demonstrating that combustion involved the combination with oxygen rather than the release of phlogiston. The Chemical Revolution paradigm shift illustrates how scientific theories persist despite contradictory evidence and how science ultimately corrects itself through rigorous measurement and testing.