The man who discovered oxygen also invented seltzer.

Science & Industry

C hemist Joseph Priestley may not be a household name, but his discoveries impact most of our everyday lives. Born near Leeds, England, in 1733, Priestley not only invented carbonated water (plus the pencil eraser) during his career, but he also independently discovered the atomic element oxygen. Of these accomplishments, his creation of seltzer came first, in 1767, when he lived near a brewery and was fascinated by the gaseous vapors it produced. Priestley mixed sulfuric acid and chalk to form carbon dioxide (though he didn't know what it was at the time) and used the compound to add bubbles to still water. Shortly thereafter, he earned the prestigious Copley Medal for his publication "Directions for Impregnating Water With Fixed Air." The beverage was later named "seltzer" in honor of the natural springs found in the German town of Selters.

When it comes to oxygen, Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele actually studied the element in 1772, predating Priestley. However, Scheele's findings weren't published until 1777, allowing Priestley to conduct groundbreaking studies in the interim. On August 1, 1774, Priestley experimented by heating the red mercuric oxide of a candle to produce a then-mysterious colorless gas that was capable of supporting life. Two months later, Priestley presented his findings to French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who conducted tests of his own, which proved to be more thorough and scientifically accurate. Priestley pushed back on Lavoisier's subsequent findings, instead embracing archaic scientific theories such as the existence of a fire-like element called phlogiston. Lavoisier persisted, however, and named the new gaseous element "oxygen," after the Greek "oxy genes," meaning "acid-forming."

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By the Numbers

Oxygen's atomic number on the periodic table

Year the first synthetic element was discovered (technetium)

1937

Average pH of cold, carbonated waters

4.5

Year Schweppes began selling carbonated water

1783

Did you know?

Samarium was the first element named after a person.

Elements such as einsteinium and bohrium may have more famous eponyms, but the first periodic element named after a person was samarium. This rare earth metal — atomic number 62 — was discovered in 1879 after being isolated from the mineral samarskite, and was named for Vasili Samarsky-Bykhovets, a Russian mining official who granted access to mineral samples for scientific research. Samarsky-Bykhovets passed away in 1870, nine years before the element was christened in his honor, but two other elemental namesakes were lucky enough to witness their own personal tributes firsthand. Seaborgium was named after Glenn Seaborg — winner of the 1951 Nobel Prize for chemistry — in 1997, just two years before Seaborg's death. More recently, in 2016, the element oganesson was formally named after nuclear physicist Yuri Oganessian, the only periodic table eponym alive today.