Foreigners were now interested in learning about English life, philosophy, and opinion. They learned English to read English literature such as Shakespeare. No longer were France and Italy the only centers of culture and influence on other nations. By 1713, England was the leading sea power by far.
The Royal Society was still the principal focus of scientific activity. Issac Newton was its President for several years and drew in more foreigners. Its members were mathematicians, chemists, botanists, physicians, engineers, authors, poets, and theologians. Papers given there generated much discussion at its meetings. Newton opined that particles attract each other by some force in a similar way that large bodies attracted each other. This force in immediate contact was exceedingly strong, at small distances performed chemical interactions, and at greater distances had no effect. Also there were local associations and societies. There were learned journals such as "Philosophical Transactions".
In 1714, the mercury thermometer was invented by Gabriel Fahrenheit of Germany; this was much more accurate than the alcohol and water thermometers. Sweden's Anders Celcius invented the Celsius scale. The hydrometer, which measures air humidity, was also invented. These made possible weather forecasting. In 1718, the French chemist Etienne Geoffroy published a table of affinities among chemical substances, a precursor to the periodic table of elements. Carolus Linneaus, a Swedish naturalist and botanist, established the scientific method of naming plants and animals by genus and species. When he showed that there was a sexual system in plants, church authorities were so shocked that they suppressed this knowledge as they did other scientific knowledge. Rev. Stephen Hales made ventilators for ships, prisons, and granaries, using the method of injecting air with bellows. This saved many lives in the prisons. In 1727, he discovered that water that plants lost by evaporation was restored by the roots up the stems. He found that gas could be obtained from plants by dry distillation and invented a way to collect gases by heating certain substances.
Hans Sloane, the son of a receiver-general of taxes, who became a physician, had collected hundreds of species of plants in Jamacia while physician to its governor. He became physician to George II and was a benefactor to many hospitals and devised a botanic garden in London for the Society of Apothecaries.
Italian Luigi Marsigli started the science of oceanography with a treatise discussing topography, circulation, ocean plants and animals, along with many measurements. Frenchman Jean-Etienne Guettard prepared the first true geological maps, showing rocks and minerals. He identified heat as the causative factor of change in the earth's landforms. John Mitchell studied earthquakes.
In 1735, George Hadley, a London lawyer and philosopher, determined that the cause of the prevailing westerly winds was the rotation of the earth to the east. Benjamin Franklin in 1743 observed that a particularly violent storm occurred in Boston a day after a particularly violent occurred in Philadelphia, and realized that they were the same storm, even though the storm's surface winds were from the northeast. He determined that Atlantic coastal storms traveled from the southwest to the northeast. In 1770, he prepared the first scientific chart of the Gulf Stream.
Daniel Bernoulli, a Swiss university lecturer in physics, mechanics, medicine, and anatomy, proved his theorem that any degree of statistical accuracy can be obtained by sufficiently increasing the observations, thereby also representing the first application of calculus to probability theory. In 1738, he showed that as the velocity of horizontal fluid flow increases, its pressure decreases. This followed from his theorem that the total mechanical energy of a flowing liquid, comprising the energy associated with fluid pressure, the gravitational potential energy of elevation, and kinetic energy of fluid motion remains constant; that is, the mechanical energy is conserved. This was the first mathematical study of fluid flow. He demonstrated that the impact of molecules on a surface would explain pressure, and that assuming the constant random motion of molecules, pressure and motion will increase with temperature. He explained the behavior of gases with changing pressure and temperature, establishing the kinetic theory of gases. Jean Nollet from France discovered osmosis, the passage of a solution through a semi-permeable membrane separating two solutions with different concentrations.
In 1754, Scotsman physician Joseph Black identified carbon dioxide, the first gas recognized as distinct from everyday breathing air. He did this by using a balance to weigh alkalies before and after exposure to heat. They lost weight by losing carbon dioxide. His development of the concept of latent heat, the quantity of heat absorbed or released when a substance changes its physical phase at constant temperature, was the first application of quantitative analysis to chemical reactions. He ascertained the effects of carbon dioxide on animals and its production by respiration, fermentation, and burning of charcoal. At this time, all flammable materials were thought to contain "phlogiston", which was given off as they burned and was associated with the transfer of heat. Plants were thought to remove phlogiston from the air and therefore burned when they were dry.
In 1773, Joseph Priestly, a nonconformist minister, schoolmaster, and tutor, discovered oxygen by heating red oxide of mercury. He became interested in the study of gases by watching the process of fermentation in a brewery next to his house. His gas collection techniques enabled him to work with gases soluble in water. He showed that the processes of combustion, respiration, and putrefaction caused one-fifth of air exposed over water to disappear, and that plants restored air vitiated by these processes. When he isolated oxygen, he noted that it was better than air in supporting respiration and combustion produced by heating certain metallic nitrates. It was called "respirable air".
Hydrogen (inflammable air) and nitrogen were discovered. The differences between acids, bases, and salts and their relationship to one another became understood. There was some theoretical as well as empirical knowledge about metals, e.g. in boiling points, intermetallic compounds, and changes in properties.