Antoine Lavoisier
I am Antoine Lavoisier,
a famous chemist. I was born in France on August 26, 1743. I grew up in an
aristocratic family. My father was a layer but my mother died when I was only
five years old.
I didn’t practice law because I found science more interesting. Since I had inherited a good deal of money when my mother died I was able to live as a nobleman and pursued various interests. I also worked in various government positions and was elected to the Royal Academy of Science in 1764.In 1775, I set up a laboratory in Paris where I could run experiments. This lab became a gathering place of scientists and I made many important discoveries in chemistry.
Do you want to know what scientific discoveries I have done?
The Law of Conservation of Mass:
One of the main scientific theories in my time was the phlogiston
theory. This theory thought fire was made up of an element called phlogiston.
But I disproved this theory and demonstrated that there was an element called
oxygen that played a major role in combustion. I also showed that the mass of
products in a reaction are equal to the mass of the reactants and no mass is
lost in a chemical reaction. This is known as the Law of Conservation of Mass
and is one of the most important and basic laws of modern chemistry and
physics.
The Elements and Chemical Nomenclature:
I spent a lot of time isolating elements and breaking down chemical
compounds. I also invented a system of naming chemical compounds that were made
up of multiple elements and named the element hydrogen. The First Chemistry
Textbook:
I also wrote the first Elementary Treatise of Chemistry. This was the
first chemistry textbook. The book contained a list of elements. I died when
the French Revolution began. I wanted to remain separate from the revolution.
But because I had worked as a tax collector for the government, I was branded a
traitor and was executed on May 8, 1794 by guillotine.
