Phase diagram can be constructed that show the effect of more than two variables on the phase of a substance. Phase diagrams can use other variables in addition to or in place of temperature, pressure and composition, for example the strength of an applied electrical or magnetic field, and they can also involve substances that take on more than just three states of matter. One type of phase diagram plots temperature against the relative concentrations of two substances in a mixture called a "binary phase diagram", as shown at right. Such a mixture can be either a solid solution, eutectic or peritectic,
Chemistry: A Volatile History unimportant parts, primarily water, Brand boiled the urine for several days until he was left with a thick paste. Finally, fragments of a substance emerged which burned brighter than any Medieval candle available at the time, but which left the vessel it burnt in cold: Brand named this new substance icy noctiluca – ‘cold night light’. Soon after its discovery, icy noctiluca toured the Royal Houses of Europe and in 1677 it came before the Royal Society in London, then under the chairmanship of Charles II, where one of its members decided to investigate. In his book "New Experiments and