How We Learned That Water Isn't An Element

For thousands of years, water was thought to be an element. That is, until some of the greatest chemists in the world managed to crack it open.

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To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
- Chemical element: is a species of atoms that have a given number of protons in their nuclei. Chemical elements cannot be broken down into simpler substances by any chemical reaction.
- Atom: is the smallest unit of ordinary matter that forms a chemical element.
- Molecule: is a group of two or more atoms held together by attractive forces known as chemical bonds.
- Inflammable air: an old name for hydrogen.
- Hydrogen: is the most abundant chemical substance in the universe. Early chemists identified hydrogen gas because it was colorless, odorless and highly combustible. Hydrogen means "maker of water" in Greek.
- Dephlogisticated air: an old name for oxygen.
- Oxygen: is Earth's most abundant element. Early chemists identified oxygen gas because it was colorless, odorless and was essential for respiration and combustion.
- Diatomic molecules: are molecules composed of only two atoms, of the same or different chemical elements. At standard conditions, both hydrogen and oxygen are gasses of diatomic molecules (H2 and O2, respectively).
- Water: is an inorganic, transparent, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms. It is vital for all known forms of life. Its chemical formula, H2O, indicates that each of its molecules contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms.
- Combustion (or burning): is a chemical reaction between a fuel and an oxidizing agent (like oxygen gas), that produces oxidized, often gaseous products, in a mixture termed as smoke.
- Electrolysis: is a technique that uses direct electric current to drive an otherwise non-spontaneous chemical reaction.
- Avogadro's Law (sometimes referred to as Avogadro's hypothesis): is an experimental gas law that states that equal volumes of all gases, at the same temperature and pressure, have the same number of molecules.

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CREDITS
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Ever Salazar | Co-writer, Narrator and Co-director
Cameron Duke | Co-writer and Co-director
Arcadi Garcia Rius | Illustration, Video Editing and Animation
Nathaniel Schroeder | Music

MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC

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[davidtagliaferri]

It always suprised me my chamber's encyclopedia from the late 1800s had HO as the incorrect formula for water, but had the correct formula for benzene, C6H6.

[BlahCraft]

inflammable air: aka hydrogen, named because objects in it wont burn, but it itself will burn.
dephlogisticated air: aka oxygen, named because it was hypothesized that it was air deprived of "phlogiston", the hypothetical fiery principle thought to be one of the necessary constituent of combustion, and to be given up by them when burned.

[ARVash]

The early elements were close to the commonly found states of matter, (solid, liquid, gas, plasma). I think they just didn't figure out that it was an quality of matter at a given temperature and not a kind of matter.

[Stinkee]

It’s so interesting how scientific knowledge develops and changes over the years.

Sometimes I wish I could time travel and see which current theories stood the test of time, which theories have changed over the years, and what new theories exist.

[BlackieSootfur]

1:25 i didnt know undyne was a chemist! Good for her

[fqwgads]

This is where hydrogen gets its name.
hydro = water
gen = generate
When combusted it literally generates water.

[patrickdallaire]

This is a wonderful example of how scientific theories change when new reproduceable observations are made.

[Scrogan]

The origins of stoichiometry have always fascinated me. Especially with how these hints of order were used to find the patterns behind the periodic table. Must have been hard to figure out that hydrogen gas was two atoms and not one, I guess it had to be found by connecting it to something like ammonia.

Also isn’t this more physics than earth?

[swingardium]

It's absolutely amazing to me that Dalton's symbol for hydrogen looks exactly like a hydrogen atom! It was made LONG before we understand atomic structure, so it's just a fun coincidence

[DrakiniteOfficial]

I love learning how scientists in the past figured stuff out. It's very enlightening.

[z-beeblebrox]

I love these videos that show the way big scientific discoveries happened thanks to small contributions by many different people over many years. It combats the common misconception that progress only happens thanks to a singular smart individual having a stroke of inspiration, which is the exception not the rule.

[TinyDeskEngineer]

Ah yes, the 4 ways to break water apart into its components, Dropping a piano on it, a golden pickaxe, shooting a bullet bill at it, and just getting Undyne to hit it really hard.

[eewag]

The fact that we knew these things in the literal 18th century without using electron microscopes is simply mind-blowing.

[KnowArt]

awesome job! I'd love more of these history lessons/stories

[getcaughtinklol]

ate a whole onion while watching this video

[guplenamente]

I wonder how chemists established that water is H2O and not H4O2, H6O3 and so on

[alluriman]

I never thought about avogadro's law before. can you make a video explaining how he proved that equal volumes have equal molecules. it doesn't seem intuitive to me

[Gaarafan]

Glad to see Misty from Cerulean City finally getting recognition as one of the greatest chemists in the world.

[mathmusicandlooks]

Fun to see you work in the little tidbits of the phlogiston theory and the Hermetic alchemical influences on Dalton’s notation.

[andrewwmitchell]

Fascinating! I remembered a little bit of that from high school chemistry (decades ago). I'd like to see another video in the same style but talking about how Avogadro found out about the numbers of molecules were equal.