Antoine Laurent Lavoisier
(1743-1794)
Biography and inventions of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier
Paris. December 24, 1793. The upheaval due
to the French Revolution was still going on
after four years. The streets of Paris were
filled with mobs (called citizen mobs) looking
for the supporters of the deposed emperor
Louis XVI, and his queen Marie Antoinette.
They came to the laboratory of Antoine
Laurent Lavoisier and arrested the chemist on
charges of plotting against the new regime and
collaborating with the old regime. Lavoisier
was the most well-known French chemist at
that time. He was held in the Bastille, the
dreaded fortress in eastern Paris, for almost
six months during which time he worked hard
at completing his collected Works. On May 8,
1794, he was tried and found guilty. Not a
single French scientist intervened on his
behalf and he was beheaded at the guillotine. Lavoisier was born in 1743 in Paris to a
prosperous lawyer. He studied at exclusive
schools and attended courses in the classics,
music and mathematics. He also became
interested in chemistry at this time but there
were no career opportunities in science and he
got a degree in law. In 1768, Lavoisier
purchased a share in the company responsible
for tax collection from the French farmers.
This was a very lucrative business but
involved a lot of travelling. Lavoisier used the
profits he earned from tax collection to
finance his own laboratory for conducting
experiments in chemistry, which was his first
love. In 1771, he married the fourteen-year-
old Marie Ann who was to be of invaluable
help to him in his work. She translated many
works from English and helped him in his
experiments. Lavoisier's first scientific
experiments in 1764 was actually a geological expedition he undertook during his travels as a
tax collector. He studied the properties of
gypsum and its interactions with various
substances. This work brought him fame, and
in 1768 he was chosen as a junior member of
the Academy of Sciences, a very prestigious
body of intellectuals. Lavoisier next turned his
attention to water. It was believed that water
could be turned into earth by boiling by
careful experimentation, he showed that the
sediment, which remains when water is boiled
off, is actually the material coming out of the
glass bottle. He also worked with Laplace,
another great French scientist to show that
hydrogen and oxygen burned to give water.
He carried out many experiments with burning
substance like phosphorous in air and was the
first to establish the Law of Conservation of
Mass. Though the gas, which we know as
oxygen, had been discovered by Priestley, in1774, Lavoisier experimented with it to show
that substances burn in it, and was responsible
for calling it oxygen. Lavoisier's work on
oxygen and acids brought him to the notice of
the government and he was appointed the
Commissioner of Royal Gunpowder
Administration in 1775. He used his expertise
to improve the manufacture of gunpowder
from the mineral saltpeter. He wrote the first
modern book on chemistry, Elementary
Treatise on Chemistry in which he compiled a
list of 33 elements, most of which we know
today. He made many other contributions to
the science of chemistry, putting it on a
modern footing and introducing the
nomenclature system. He is justly referred to
as the father of modern chemistry. However,
all of this could not Lavoisier from the
guillotine. When he died, the famous French
scientist Lagrange wrote: (It took but a moment to cut off that head, though a hundred
years perhaps will be required to produce
another like it).
Facts at a Glance
. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier is usually
considered as the founder of modern
chemistry. His main work was the
development of the concept of chemical
elements.
. Lavoisier studied the properties of air. He
built upon the ideas of several scientists like
Black and Priestley who had discovered
carbon dioxide and oxygen, and went on to
give a new theory of combustion. He was the
first person to speculate that air played a part
in combustion, and gases from air combined
with the burning material to form new
compounds.
. It was Lavoisier who proposed to call
(respirable air) oxigene, from the Greek words
for acid and generate. He also investigated
respiration, and discovered that both heat and
carbon dioxide was given out when we
breathe and this process was thus similar to
combustion.
. Lavoisier also worked on the properties of
various acids and minerals and claimed to
have developed a superior version of
gunpowder.
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Instructor: Samiullah Zewak