What is flagiston?

Question

I have no clue, and it's due in tomorrow!

Answer 1

Try Wikipedia -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston

Answer 2

Phlogistic theory of burning and rusting was an idea ,before modern chemistry which used the magical thing called phlogiston.This substance was assumed to have NEGATIVE MASS.;so if you burned a substance AND KEPT ALL THE PRODUCTS the substance was heavier after burning than before burning,The daft explanation being that burning was an example where 'negative mass phlogiston had been lost'.All this was bound up with such q***r things as 'caloric''Philosophers wool and transmutation of base metals into gold.

Answer 3

in the 1700s they thought it was fire and they thought mice came from old rags worms from mud and Basil rubbed in to cracks in a wall will spawn scorpions

Answer 4

The theory of phlogiston was devised as an explanation as to why some things burnt. Things which had lots of phlogiston were supposed to burn well, losing phlogiston in the process.

This was also supposed to account for the loss of mass by burned substances.

However it was later demonstrated (by Humphry Davy, IIRC) that when substances burned, there was actually a gain in mass if no gases were produced.

Now we know that there is no such substance as phlogiston and that burning is the result of a chemical reaction with Oxygen.

Answer 5

flagiston was what physicists and chemists used to think flames were made of.

Answer 6

phlogiston. burns.