Question

Joseph Priestley Performed an Experiment in Which - Fill in the Blank - Was Heated By Focusing Sun Rays On It Using a Convex Lens.

Answer 1

Joseph Priestley FRS produced over 150 publications as an English chemist, natural philosopher, separatist theology, grammarian, multi-subject educator, and liberal political theorist. He is credited with discovering oxygen independently in 1774 by the thermal breakdown of mercuric oxide and isolating it. Despite the fact that Swedish scientist Carl Wilhelm Scheele has a strong claim to the discovery, Priestley was the first to publish his findings. In the year 1772, Scheele found it by heating potassium nitrate, mercuric oxide, and a variety of other chemicals.
**Complete step-by-step solution: In 1774, Joseph Priestley conducted an experiment in which he heated red mercuric oxide (HgO) by concentrating the Sun's rays on it using a convex lens. One of the earliest scientists to discover oxygen was Priestley. In 1774, Joseph Priestly created oxygen by heating red mercury(II) oxide and focusing sunlight via a lens. Both Joseph Priestley and Antoine Lavoisier employed burning lenses in their studies to get oxides confined in closed containers at high temperatures. Priestley created a variety of gases, including nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, CO, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, HCl, ammonia, and sulphur dioxide, some of which he found first. Both Joseph Priestley and Antoine Lavoisier employed burning lenses in their studies to get oxides confined in closed containers at high temperatures. Priestley's scientific fame was built during his lifetime on his creation of carbonated water, his works on electricity, and his discovery of many "airs" (gases), the most renowned of which was termed "dephlogisticated air" by Priestley (oxygen). Priestley's steadfastness in defending phlogiston theory and rejecting the chemical revolution finally drove him out of the scientific community.

Note: Priestley's strength as a natural philosopher was qualitative rather than quantitative, and his discovery of "a stream of actual air" between two electrified sites piqued Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell's interest in electromagnetic later. For nearly a century, Priestley's work was the classic history of electricity; it was used by Alessandro Volta (who subsequently created the battery), William Herschel (who discovered infrared radiation), and Henry Cavendish (who found hydrogen). Priestley produced A Familiar Introduction to the Study of Electricity, a popular rendition of the History of Electricity for the general audience (1768).