You've done a terrific job so far - just so you will know - you are right - the title of this paper is concerning philosophy. However it's not the kind of philosophy you might be recognize today. Early in its existence, the field of science was considered a kind of "natural philosophy", which meant people were trying to find explanations for things they saw by reasoning (not the way we think of trying to find explanations today, through scientific investigations).
As an example, I would like for you to look at the phlogiston theory. This was the theory about why things burned. Alchemists and early chemists believed that phlogiston was similar to flammability and/or oxidation. Post what you find about phlogiston.
Also, I may not have been clear about keeping track of your sources. You need to be sure that you keep a record of the internet sources you've used so far and all of those that will be used during this project. If you keep a record of them here, it will keep things all in one place!
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I am pretty sure the main website I have been using is wikipedia and links off that page.
The phlogiston theory was written in 1667 by Johann Joachim Becher. The Greeks believed there were four types of matter earth, water, air, and fire; phlogiston was an addition to these four substances that was supposedly in combustible materials. They also said that metals rusting and animals breathing were a form of combustion. Materials that burned easily were said to have high levels of phlogiston and after they have burned they are “dephlogisticated.” When oxygen was discovered it was said to be dephlogisticated air. Eventually there were problems with the theory because some elements like magnesium gained weight which was bad because they were supposed to lose weight because they lost phlogiston. Some scientist said that that phlogiston was lighter than air or that it had a negative weight. This theory was popular until Lavosier (the father of chemistry) proved combustion requires oxygen which has weight. Chemists also thought that understanding combustion would revolutionize chemistry.
These are the websites I used for the phlogiston theory:
http://www.jimloy.com/physics/phlogstn.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory
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