Chemical reactions are the heart of chemistry. People have
always known that they exist. The Ancient Greeks were the firsts
to speculate on the composition of matter. They thought that it
was possible that individual particles made up matter.
Later, in the Seventeenth Century, a German chemist named
Georg Ernst Stahl was the first to postulate on chemical
reaction, specifically, combustion. He said that a substance
called phlogiston escaped into the air from all substances during
combustion. He explained that a burning candle would go out if a
candle snuffer was put over it because the air inside the snuffer
became saturated with phlogiston. According to his ideas, wood
is made up of phlogiston and ash, because only ash is left after
combustion. His ideas soon came upon some contradiction. When
metal is burned, its ash has a greater mass than the original
substance. Stahl tried to cover himself by saying that
phlogiston will take away from a......
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