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 of a flame – this led Cavendish to name the gas inflammable air, which he believed to be one and the same as phlogiston. Cavendish, though he did not realise it, made an important observation about burning phlogiston in air; a dewy liquid was formed on the inside of the glassware: water. This should have had enormous repercussions for the whole scientific community in the 1700s, who still believed water to be an elemental substance. Yet, if water could be "made" by burning inflammable air, then water is "not" an element, but a compound. However, it simply did not occur