fractitoous fact is us airs

Factitious airs

Historical science of gases

---

Factitious airs was a term used for synthetic gases which emerged around 1670 when Robert Boyle coined the term upon isolating what is now understood to be hydrogen. Factitious means "artificial, not natural", so the term means "man-made gases".

Nitrous oxide

Colourless non-flammable greenhouse gas

---

Nitrous oxide (dinitrogen oxide or dinitrogen monoxide), commonly known as laughing gas, nitrous, factitious air, among others, is a chemical compound, an oxide of nitrogen with the formula N
₂O. At room temperature, it is a colourless non-flammable gas, and has a slightly sweet scent and taste. At elevated temperatures, nitrous oxide is a powerful oxidiser similar to molecular oxygen.

Robert Boyle coined the term Factitious Air upon isolating hydrogen in 1670. Henry Cavendish (1731–1810) used the term "factitious air" to refer to "any kind of air which is contained in other bodies in an unelastic state, and is produced from thence by art".

An archaic definition from 1747 for the production of factitious air was defined as being caused by: "1- by flow Degrees from Putrefactions and Fermentations of all Kinds; or 2- more expeditiously by some Sorts of chymical Dissolutions of Bodies; or 3- and lastly, almost instantaneously by the Explosion of Gunpowder, and the Mixture or some Kinds of Bodies. Thus, if Paste or Dough with Leaven be placed in an exhausted Receiver, it will, after some Time, by Fermentation, produce a considerable quantity of Air, which will appear very plainly by the Sinking the Quicksilver in the Gage. Thus also any Animal or Vegetable Substance, putrifying in Vacuo, will produce the same Effect."