Antoine de Lavoisier

modern chemistry

He made it a measuring science.

💡 Did you know? Lavoisier turned chemistry from a mysterious alchemy into an exact, measuring science.

oxygen

He showed its role in burning and breathing.

💡 Did you know? Lavoisier named oxygen and recognised its role in combustion and breathing.

conservation of mass

No mass is lost in reactions.

💡 Did you know? His law of conservation of mass states that in chemical reactions nothing is lost, only transformed.

phlogiston theory

A supposed fire-substance that does not exist.

💡 Did you know? Lavoisier disproved the centuries-old phlogiston theory, which assumed a mysterious „fire substance“.

guillotine

As a former tax farmer during the French Revolution.

💡 Did you know? Lavoisier was guillotined during the French Revolution in 1794: „the Republic needs no scholars“, it was reportedly said.

tax farmer

That became his undoing in the Revolution.

💡 Did you know? Lavoisier's main occupation was tax farmer: which is precisely what doomed him in the Revolution.

Antoine de Lavoisier

Antoine de Lavoisier is regarded as the father of modern chemistry: he named oxygen and formulated the conservation of mass.

💡 Did you know? Of his execution a contemporary said it took a moment to cut off his head, but a century would not produce another like it.

1743

Born: 26 August 1743 in Paris

1794

Died: 8 May 1794 in Paris, aged 50

Paris

Born: 26 August 1743 in Paris