Through this proposal, he called the substance the "oxy-gene"(or oxygen).This was proven wrong by british scientist Humphry Davis who found that oxygen was not responsible for the acidity of a substance, since certain acids were acidic without containing oxygen. Von Liebig proposed the idea that the acidity of a substance was generated by hydrogen, because it was the common component that all acids have. Acids range from 6-0 on the pH scale.The concept of base was introduced by French chemist Guillaume François Rouelle who found that acids, such as acetic acid, turned into salt when added with specific substances. The substances created formed a solid base for the salt, which is where the name base came from.
Most bacterial specimen survive in neutral pH values[6.7-7] Other bacteria can survive in very acidic and very basic environments. The level of acidity and basicity can affect bacteria in a positive or negative way. Since soil bacteria has many different types of bacteria, there will be certain bacteria that will be affected by the change of acidity or basicity,and others that will thrive in the environment. Soil bacteria tend to survive more in more basic environments as seen in other studies. Our objective for this experiment was to see the effect that acids and bases on the growth of soil bacteria and how the bacteria resisted the acids/bases. Our null hypothesis (H0) is that the soil bacteria will show the same amount of resistance to both the acidic and basic discs . Our alternative hypothesis (H1) is that the soil bacteria will resist the basic solution more than the acidic solution. The zone of inhibition was measured to see the bacteria's resistance to the base or acid.
Materials and Methods .
Organisms.
Bacterial organisms used in the experiment are soil bacteria. We did not extract any specific species of bacteria, but we used the soil sample as a whole. .
Acids and Bases.
