ANTOINE LAVOISIER
(26 August 1743 – 8 May 1794)
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, also Antoine Lavoisier after the French
Revolution, the "father of modern chemistry" was a French nobleman prominent in
the histories of chemistry and biology.
His work on combustion, oxidation, and gases, especially those in air,
overthrew the phlogiston doctrine, which held that a component of matter
(phlogiston) was given off by a substance in the process of combustion. That
theory had held sway for a century.
He formulated the principle of the conservation of mass in chemical
reactions, clarified the distinction between elements and compounds, and was
instrumental in devising the modern system of chemical nomenclature (naming
oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon). He was among the first to use quantitative
procedures in chemical investigations, and his experimental ingenuity, exact
methods, and cogent reasoning, along with the resultant discoveries,
revolutionized chemistry.
He also worked on physical problems, especially heat, and on fermentation,
respiration and animals. Independently wealthy, he had a simultaneous career as
a public servant of remarkable versatility in areas including finance,
economics, agriculture, education and social welfare.
A reformer and political liberal, Lavoisier was active in the French
Revolution but came under increasing attack from extremists and was
guillotined.
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