Dr. Cogan’s presentation about Joseph Priestly and Antoine Lavoisier really had me thinking about how people viewed air in a whole new perspective. When being tasked with ditching everything we have ever learned about air and explaining it in the ways that the common person would have before these two chemists discoveries, I understood the public’s situation after learning of Priestly and Lavoisier’s findings. It must have been confusing for proponents of the Phlogiston Theory to strongly believe in such a theory for such a long time and then have to think about something as simple as air in a whole new perspective. I also enjoyed how Dr. Cogan talked a little about the political aspects of these chemists findings, in which political tensions and mob rule had a huge influence on both of their lives and work (and in the matter of Lavoisier, death). I was also amazed at how complex Priestly’s pneumatic trough was at his time, and how he was able to measure the life span of a mouse in different environments to understand what oxygen is. Overall, I enjoyed this presentation because it brought a great deal of appreciation that I never really had for something as simple as air, as well as the work that these two chemists did to understand what air and oxygen was.
I think you hit on an important point that Kuhn makes repeatedly in his book. It is difficult to accept a change in paradigm, but particularly for those with a long exposure to it…perhaps Lavoisier, being a relative newcomer to chemistry and trained in other disciplines was more easily able to make that transition.