Empedocles was the first person to understand that air wasn't nothing in 500 BC. In 1632, Galileo found that air had weight. In 1657, Robert Boyle conducted several experiments which found that without air fire was extinguished, there was no sound, and animals could not survive. This all proved air existed, but it wasn't until the French Revolution when Antoine Lavoisier studied air's composition that the compounds of air were discovered: nitrogen and oxygen. At the end of the 19th century, William Ramsey and John Raleigh noticed a third gas in air. It was called Argon, which was later learned to be one of the rare or noble gases.