[{"text": "English chemist John Mayow (1641\u20131679) refined this work by showing that fire requires only a part of air that he called spiritus nitroaereus.", "answers": [{"correct": "requires", "startIndex": 78, "confidence": 0.0, "distractors": ["require", "requiring", "required", "allows"]}]}, {"text": "Air did not play a role in phlogiston theory, nor were any initial quantitative experiments conducted to test the idea; instead, it was based on observations of what happens when something burns, that most common objects appear to become lighter and seem to lose something in the process.\n\n", "answers": [{"correct": "burns", "startIndex": 189, "confidence": 0.0, "distractors": ["burn", "philp", "injuries", "burning"]}]}, {"text": "Priestley published his findings in 1775 in a paper titled \"An Account of Further Discoveries in Air,\" which was included in the second volume of his book titled Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air.", "answers": [{"correct": "Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air", "startIndex": 162, "confidence": 2.285484416225439e-284, "distractors": []}, {"correct": "An Account of Further Discoveries in Air", "startIndex": 60, "confidence": 4.656071905197348e-280, "distractors": []}]}, {"text": "In one experiment, he found that placing either a mouse or a lit candle in a closed container over water caused the water to rise and replace one-fourteenth of the air's volume before extinguishing the subjects.", "answers": [{"correct": "caused", "startIndex": 105, "confidence": 1.2483333977253918e-232, "distractors": ["causing", "cause", "resulting", "damage"]}]}, {"text": "Mayow observed that antimony increased in weight when heated, and inferred that the nitroaereus must have combined with it.", "answers": [{"correct": "increased", "startIndex": 29, "confidence": 1.2483333977253918e-232, "distractors": ["increase", "increasing", "decreased", "increases"]}]}, {"text": "He noted that candles burned brighter in the gas and that a mouse was more active and lived longer while breathing it.", "answers": [{"correct": "burned", "startIndex": 22, "confidence": 1.2483333977253918e-232, "distractors": ["burnt", "burning", "torched", "destroyed"]}]}, {"text": "After breathing the gas himself, Priestley wrote: \"The feeling of it to my lungs was not sensibly different from that of common air, but I fancied that my breast felt peculiarly light and easy for some time afterwards.\"", "answers": [{"correct": "felt", "startIndex": 162, "confidence": 1.2483333977253918e-232, "distractors": ["feel", "feeling", "feels", "really"]}]}, {"text": "One of the first known experiments on the relationship between combustion and air was conducted by the 2nd century BCE Greek writer on mechanics, Philo of Byzantium.", "answers": [{"correct": "Philo of Byzantium", "startIndex": 146, "confidence": 9.850805218318762e-228, "distractors": []}, {"correct": "BCE Greek", "startIndex": 115, "confidence": 1.1534939421407392e-226, "distractors": []}]}, {"text": "In his work Pneumatica, Philo observed that inverting a vessel over a burning candle and surrounding the vessel's neck with water resulted in some water rising into the neck.", "answers": [{"correct": "Philo", "startIndex": 24, "confidence": 3.037101726927135e-226, "distractors": ["farnsworth", "phoebe", "vance", "byblos"]}]}, {"text": "Philo incorrectly surmised that parts of the air in the vessel were converted into the classical element fire and thus were able to escape through pores in the glass.", "answers": [{"correct": "Philo", "startIndex": 0, "confidence": 3.037101726927135e-226, "distractors": ["farnsworth", "phoebe", "vance", "byblos"]}]}, {"text": "Many centuries later Leonardo da Vinci built on Philo's work by observing that a portion of air is consumed during combustion and respiration.\n\n", "answers": [{"correct": "Philo", "startIndex": 48, "confidence": 3.037101726927135e-226, "distractors": ["farnsworth", "phoebe", "vance", "byblos"]}, {"correct": "Leonardo da Vinci", "startIndex": 21, "confidence": 7.499624361464239e-225, "distractors": []}]}, {"text": "Accounts of these and other experiments and ideas were published in 1668 in his work Tractatus duo in the tract \"De respiratione\".\n\n", "answers": [{"correct": "Tractatus", "startIndex": 85, "confidence": 3.037101726927135e-226, "distractors": ["logico-philosophicus", "libellus", "adversus", "legibus"]}]}, {"text": "In Bugaj\u2019s view, the isolation of oxygen and the proper association of the substance to that part of air which is required for life, lends sufficient weight to the discovery of oxygen by Sendivogius.", "answers": [{"correct": "Sendivogius", "startIndex": 187, "confidence": 3.037101726927135e-226, "distractors": []}]}, {"text": "In the meantime, on August 1, 1774, an experiment conducted by the British clergyman Joseph Priestley focused sunlight on mercuric oxide (HgO) contained in a glass tube, which liberated a gas he named \"dephlogisticated air\".", "answers": [{"correct": "HgO", "startIndex": 138, "confidence": 3.037101726927135e-226, "distractors": ["gockley", "moff", "abhiman", "tarkin"]}]}, {"text": "Established in 1667 by the German alchemist J. J. Becher, and modified by the chemist Georg Ernst Stahl by 1731, phlogiston theory stated that all combustible materials were made of two parts.", "answers": [{"correct": "J. J. Becher", "startIndex": 44, "confidence": 7.499624361464239e-225, "distractors": []}, {"correct": "Georg Ernst Stahl", "startIndex": 86, "confidence": 7.499624361464239e-225, "distractors": []}]}, {"text": "De Lapide Philosophorum Tractatus duodecim e naturae fonte et manuali experientia depromti (1604) described a substance contained in air, referring to it as 'cibus vitae' (food of life), and this substance is identical with oxygen.", "answers": [{"correct": "De Lapide Philosophorum", "startIndex": 0, "confidence": 7.499624361464239e-225, "distractors": []}]}]