How did early chemists isolate the earliest identified elements and determine that they were in fact elements? | AskScience Blog

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How did early chemists isolate the earliest identified elements and determine that they were in fact elements?

How did early chemists isolate the earliest identified elements and determine that they were in fact elements?


How did early chemists isolate the earliest identified elements and determine that they were in fact elements?

Posted: 27 Jan 2018 07:55 PM PST

I've been trying to read as much about this as I can on Wikipedia but I haven't seen on there yet an answer to this question. In the article on the History of Chemistry, it mentions that Jabir ibn Hayyan identified mercury and sulfur as chemical elements but doesn't indicate how he actually figured this out. Whatever he did, it didn't seem to convince the scientific community of Europe (if they even knew about it) because in the article on sulfur it mentions that Antoine Lavoisier helped convince them that sulfur was in fact an element and not a compound. What did Lavoisier do to convince the scientific community of Europe that sulfur was an element and not a compound? What experiments did he run (if any) to do this? Both mercury and sulfur have been known since ancient times but other elements were only identified later, like nitrogen. How did people like Daniel Rutherford isolate nitrogen and how was it determined by scientists at the time that it was an element? I'm curious about this for all the elements, especially the ones discovered before the nucleus of the atom itself was discovered.

submitted by /u/DeutscherLerner
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Is extra muscle as hard on the heart as extra fat?

Posted: 28 Jan 2018 05:46 AM PST

Reading around I have seen suggestions that extra muscle can be as tough on the heart as carrying extra fat. This seems very unintuitive, I think of muscle as the good stuff and fat as bad (to an extent of course). But the logic is that muscle needs oxygen and nutrients and more of it strains the body. Is this true or just a myth?

submitted by /u/PunchTornado
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Why did scientists estimate the Opportunity Rover to only last for 90 days, and why did it last for that much longer (14 years)?

Posted: 27 Jan 2018 07:48 AM PST

Was it a miscalculation? Or a worse case scenario? What parameters are there for estimating the life span of a Rover?

Edit: Thanks to every single one of you who commented to get this question some traction :) And a big thanks to those who had an answer to it!

submitted by /u/Lenoxx97
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Does physical trauma (shaking/vibration/dropping) have an influence on batteries and how long they hold their charge?

Posted: 27 Jan 2018 04:01 PM PST

If I'm tossing my AA batteries around the house before I actually use them in something could I at all be shortening how long/well they can hold their charge?

submitted by /u/Ganja_Gorilla
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Thinking about the umbilical cord, at what point is it the mother's DNA and at what point is it the baby's DNA? Is there a point where they're mixed?

Posted: 28 Jan 2018 03:30 AM PST

Do the good bacteria in probiotic drinks and yogurts multiply as time passes? If so, does that mean we should wait as soo as possible before consuming them to get the most of it?

Posted: 28 Jan 2018 06:24 AM PST

Does the law of optics apply to non visable light?

Posted: 28 Jan 2018 06:36 AM PST

Question from the armchair here. Do higher wavelength telescopes have different resolution equations?

submitted by /u/Monoraffe
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How many dinosaur fossils are there compared to the original populations?

Posted: 28 Jan 2018 02:25 AM PST

When measuring the missing mass in the universe, how do we distinguish between black holes and dark matter since we can see neither?

Posted: 28 Jan 2018 07:15 AM PST

Is it true that the frontal cortex is not fully formed until age 25 in 100% of humans?

Posted: 27 Jan 2018 12:58 PM PST

I always hear the argument that people under 25 are not fully in control of themselves because "Their frontal cortex is not fully developed", as if they have an utter lack of executive control. I'm always wary of absolutes, and I have known plenty of people under the age of 25 who were far more mature than many adults. Is it an exaggeration, and/or do some people develop faster than others, or are there other factors at play other than frontal cortex development that has a hand in executive control and maturity? What's the story? I'd love some studies that prove this one way or the other.

submitted by /u/kuuzo
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If i do some heavy calculation on a CPU, producing a lot of heat, would the same amount of electrical energy produce the same amount of thermal energy as, say, a resistor?

Posted: 27 Jan 2018 11:27 PM PST

How do Scientists find out the molecular structure of a Substance?

Posted: 27 Jan 2018 09:45 PM PST

What’s the life cycle of a snail? Are they born with shells? Are their shells part of them that grows, like our fingernails?

Posted: 27 Jan 2018 01:52 PM PST

What determines the strength of a light?

Posted: 28 Jan 2018 04:52 AM PST

Are there any theories explaining why the northern hemisphere of Mars is uniformly lower in elevation than the southern hemisphere?

Posted: 27 Jan 2018 08:46 AM PST

For a map courtesy of NASA.

submitted by /u/Veritas-VosLiberabit
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What is the name for the 'average' spherical correction of an eyeglass if it has a cylindrical correction as well?

Posted: 28 Jan 2018 03:44 AM PST

I suppose SPH -5.00 CYL -1.00 on eyeglass prescriptions is equivalent to SPH -6.00 CYL +1.00, depending on using a plus or minus cylinder notation. 1 I would like to express the 'average' spherical correction as a single number, 5.50, to compare the spherical correction of a few friends. Does this 'average' value have an official name?

submitted by /u/Egmond
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How big does a body of water need to be to have noticeable tides?

Posted: 27 Jan 2018 01:16 PM PST

Does a planet create any kind of wake as it orbits it's star?

Posted: 27 Jan 2018 08:22 AM PST

What is the difference between Standard Model gauge coupling unification and the Supersymmetric one?

Posted: 27 Jan 2018 04:21 PM PST

Is the only difference in the GUT gauge coupling value or is the Weinberg mixing angle different as well?

P.S. I know there are vast differences even between the MSSM and the SM, I'm just asking for the gauge coupling unification.

submitted by /u/LabLadYT
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How do immune cells know not to attack beneficial bacteria in the body?

Posted: 27 Jan 2018 10:00 AM PST

How does a Seagull survive the winter without migration?

Posted: 27 Jan 2018 04:19 PM PST

Lately I've been seeing seagulls flying in the sky, despite being the dead cold of winter, with ice and snow everywhere.

What are the techniques do they use to survive the cold?

submitted by /u/Lishy1_5
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Does the repetition of a thought, out loud or internally, give rise to belief in that thought, regardless of whether it's true or not?

Posted: 27 Jan 2018 12:17 PM PST

For example, if I repeat "I'm the smartest man who ever lived," "It is raining in Prague right now," or "My girlfriend is at the store right now," is it possible that that thought gets embedded into your psyche and you end up believing it as a fact? This goes sort of along the vein of self help seminars that tell you to repeat "I am good," etc in a mirror everyday.

submitted by /u/lazylazy99
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