NOUN
- a hypothetical substance once believed to be present in all combustible materials and to be released during burning
How To Use phlogiston In A Sentence
- It is as dead as phlogiston and the universal aether.
- Priestley interpreted them in terms of phlogiston — the hypothetical principle of flammability that was thought to give metals their luster and ductility and was widely used in the early eighteenth century to explain combustion, calcination, smelting, respiration, and other chemical processes. Priestley, Joseph
- For example, sun-centered astronomy replaced earth-centered, oxygen superseded phlogiston, and absolute space gave way to curved space.
- The "subtle and phlogistic" parts of this oil (a phlogiston-rich substance to begin with) can escape only by crossing the painting; on their way out they attach to and so alter the color. reference As the volatile parts continue to evaporate, the small portions of colors that are not built up close enough to each other lose their tone because the colors underneath transpire. The Creation of Color in Eighteenth-Century Europe
- Without that, theism has no more explanatory power than phlogiston or the luminiferous ether. Attached to Strings
- Then a French pharmacist named Pierre Bayen pointed out to Lavoisier that calx of mercury, which we would now call mercuric oxide, can be converted to mercury simply by heating, without the need for phlogiston-rich charcoal.
- Each precipitate is more or less adherent, depending on how it combines with phlogiston and on the quantity of oil, present as an intermediate, available to join coloring particles to cloth. 25 His explanation for the use of this material again relies on a macroscopic analogy based on his practical experience. The Creation of Color in Eighteenth-Century Europe
- Such expressions as "dephlogisticated" and "phlogisticated" would obviously have little meaning to a generation who were no longer to believe in the existence of phlogiston. A History of Science: in Five Volumes. Volume IV: Modern Development of the Chemical and Biological Sciences
- According to the phlogiston theory, combustible materials contain a substance - phlogiston - that is emitted by the material as it burns.
- It was assumed that metals give out phlogiston during calcination.
