Nitrogen would be phlogiston-saturated air, in which nothing would burn. Coal would be full of phlogiston and burn easily in any air that isn’t phlogiston-saturated.
I went and read up on Phlogiston a little bit, and this makes sense to me now. The Nitrogen (absence of Oxygen) is a good analogy for what is a very weird theory (Phlogiston—I can see why Steam-Punks are so drawn to this esoteric and wildly insane theory—and I can see why at the time it made sense to Stahl even though it was wildly wrong… The terminology tends to sound really ludicrous: Phlogisticated or Dephlogisticated… Uh, huh...)
I can now see where my analogy with the proton is off, as well.
Nitrogen would be phlogiston-saturated air, in which nothing would burn. Coal would be full of phlogiston and burn easily in any air that isn’t phlogiston-saturated.
I went and read up on Phlogiston a little bit, and this makes sense to me now. The Nitrogen (absence of Oxygen) is a good analogy for what is a very weird theory (Phlogiston—I can see why Steam-Punks are so drawn to this esoteric and wildly insane theory—and I can see why at the time it made sense to Stahl even though it was wildly wrong… The terminology tends to sound really ludicrous: Phlogisticated or Dephlogisticated… Uh, huh...)
I can now see where my analogy with the proton is off, as well.