Lavoisier's Memoir In Combustion In General

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In Lavoisier’s Memoir in Combustion in General, the author emphasizes the importance of organizing experimental data to form new theories. Specifically, he encourages hypothesis testing and trial-and-error to better understand the laws of nature. Lavoisier apply these principles to his own theory by outlining the observations from combustion and calcification, and by hypothesizing the properities of “pure air” and “the matter of fire”. In order to better grasp Lavoisier’s approach, it is important to understand the phenomena behind combustion and calcification. For the first phenomena, he noted how all combustions involved the formation of fire or light. With that in mind, Lavoisier also observed that this combustion occurs only through dephlogisticated air / pure air. Other airs (e.g. carbon dioxide) act as a fire extinguisher similar to that of water. Another combustion phenomenon he outlined was how the weight of the burnt material directly relates to the amount of air used in the reaction. Moreover, he also described how certain substances turn into acids after it has been burn...

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