The Inventor of Air

Johnson, Steven (2008). The Invention of Air: The Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America. New York, Riverhead Books, 254 p.

Last summer I posted an article here about the personal characteristics of inventors. It was called “Look in the Mirror. Do You see an Inventor?” I got to thinking again about that piece because I’ve just finished reading The Invention of Air. This is terrific book for any inventor about Joseph Priestley. It is not a “how to” book, but rather, a biography of someone whose name you might not remember, but should. I got to wondering how Priestley would stack up using the list of characteristics in the earlier article. I’ll “rate” him on those attributes after I tell you just a bit about him.

Joseph Priestley was a philosopher, a scientist, a Unitarian minister, an inventor, a prolific writer, an educator and someone who put his two cents in on every political issue that came his way. He was also a stirring public speaker. A little too stirring; given the fact that his speeches stirred a conservative mob to burn down his home and his church. Does this sound like a contemporary rebel? It does seem to me that Priestley shows a rather modern character. But he lived from 1733 until 1804!

If you think that a man of that era would have nothing to say to us today, think again. Not only was he friends with Adams, Franklin and Jefferson, he also had been a leading light in the coffee house culture of London before his fortunate quick exit to what would soon become the United States. A flaming liberal, his fiery sermons made many English people of the era question his religious, as well as his political views.

But since the subject here is creativity and invention, not politics and religion, I’ll tell you more about Priestley as an inventor and as a creative person. (By the way, he invented fizzy soda water. I bet that you thought that the inventor of soda water was Schweppes, but, in fact, Jacob Schweppe patented the process for making and bottling the stuff and became rich by improving on and commercializing Priestley’s idea.)

In the original piece there were nine characteristics noted. I’ll designate matches with those characteristics by boldfacing each attribute. Inventors are Problem-Solvers, Motivated, Creative, Curious, Optimistic, Self-confident, Resourceful, Hard-working, and are sometimes considered Eccentric.

If you know anything at all about this man, you may remember from high school chemistry that Priestley is often credited with discovering oxygen, which he called “dephlogisticated “ air, based on an erroneous understanding of the properties of the gas. Actually, he was one of several people who had been experimenting with the gases that allow human life to be sustained on earth. Lavoisier was also working on this problem, and actually named oxygen. And another early experimenter, Carl Wilhelm Scheele, actually predated Priestley’s discovery when he isolated the gas, but he hadn’t published any reports of his findings. This little incident tells much about Priestley, and illustrates several characteristics of inventors that I wrote about over the summer.

First and foremost, Priestley was creative. He read widely, thought deeply, and was interested in everything. He lived in an era when science was the big new idea and when amateurs were able to make contributions to the growing knowledge. We’ve seen many instances where the non-expert eye can see new possibilities better than the established authorities.

Empiricism captured his attention and he uninhibitedly set about to learn more about everything in the natural world. The world was his laboratory and his diverse interests also brought him to question the accepted truths of, not only science, but also religion and political theory. He was open minded and forward thinking, causing some conservative and traditional people to scorn his point of view.

He was also a problem solver, and like Levy in the earlier piece, could be said to be “looking for trouble.” He was not only a problem solver but a “finder” of problems. He tried to find out why a mint plant lived or died in a certain environment, and why a mouse in the same environment perished or thrived. He had to invent the apparatus to do the experiments that he concocted, and built his lab equipment from things he found around his home – especially the kitchen and the laundry room. He was resourceful.

Priestley was a hugely curious fellow. He was somewhat childlike in his curiosity about nature and the world around him. When he was a child, Johnson relates, Priestley pulled the legs off spiders, and as an adult he asphyxiated mice. But these operations were not sadistic torments. They were real experiments in the era that was beginning to differentiate science as a separate endeavor from philosophy.

His huge output of writing is just one example of his self confidence. He marched to his own drum and never gave up the beat. He held fast to his conviction about not only political matters, but also, unfortunately, to his theories about phlogiston. Because he was curious, he was also highly motivated. Dare we say driven? He was like a dog on a bone when it came to his experiments, his opinions, and proving his theories.

Over one interval of eight years (from 1772 and 1780) Priestley isolated ten different gases: nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, nitrous oxide, hydrogen chloride, ammonia, sulfur dioxide, silicon tetra fluoride, nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon monoxide. He also invented the apparatus to create his experiments, and wrote and published to disseminate his findings. If this isn’t evidence of motivation, consider it evidence of hard work.

Priestley was considered a bit eccentric, but eccentricity is in the eye of the beholder. Because his interests were so diverse, he had opinions about everything. And because he questioned authority he attracted both positive and negative attention. He loved to talk about his experiences and swap information about his experiments with members of his social clubs, first in London, and later in Birmingham. This may be seen to be at odds with the secrecy of many inventors, but nowadays many are highly collaborative. Priestley was just ahead of his time (by two centuries)!

This network of mutual support helped him clarify his views, and pointed him to new possibilities. He wrote, almost compulsively, about his scientific quests and was not secretive about his discoveries. He gained confidence as he was accepted by the London group of intellectuals, and in Birmingham used his network to fund his research.

We see his nearly childlike optimism in his support of democratic ideals, and in his confidence that science would and could improve the lives of regular people. He wrote strongly, stridently, about the need for improvements in the political system, and after he moved to America, he optimistically sought to build a community of researchers and open-minded thinkers in his locale in Pennsylvania.

As you read Johnson’s engaging book you’ll develop an affection for this quirky radical. Considered at once a genius and a heretic, Priestley was a unique and important person in the history of science and invention.

Comments