Joseph Black
Joseph Black - A Famous Scottish Chemist
Joseph Black (1728 - 1799) Although Joseph Black was born in Bordeaux, the son of a Belfast wine-merchant, he spent most of his life in Scotland. He was educated at Glasgow University, where he was professor of chemistry from 1756 to 1766. In 1766 he became professor of chemistry at Edinburgh, a post that he held until his death in 1799.
In 1767 Joseph Black made the first suggestion that hydrogen might be used to fill balloons, but 16 years passed before the first balloon was made. In chemistry, he showed that a gas produced when limestone is roasted to make quicklime. He identified this gas with "fixed air" (carbon dioxide) and showed by exact quantative experiments that it is a distinct chemical substance, not merely a form of ordinary air. He was also the first to distinguish magnesia from lime, of which it was formerly thought to be a variety. In physics he made the first distinction between temperature and the quantity of heat, and his studies of the relation between temperature and heat during the melting of ice led to his discovery of latent heat.
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