Lavoisier

Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (1743–1794) was a French chemist who helped establish chemistry as a quantitative, experimentally based science and is often called the father of modern chemistry. Born in Paris, he studied at the Collège Louis-le-Grand and, while pursuing a career in the Ferme générale, a government tax enterprise, conducted ambitious research in his spare time.

Lavoisier helped to overthrow the phlogiston theory by demonstrating that combustion and respiration involve oxidation and that mass is conserved in chemical reactions. He and his collaborators conducted careful, repeatable experiments and introduced precise measurement as a standard in chemistry. He named and characterized oxygen and hydrogen, established that air is a mixture of these gases and not a simple substance, and showed that water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen.

He played a central role in reforming chemical nomenclature, science education, and the quality of chemical data. His 1789 Traité élémentaire de chimie summarized a new chemistry in a concise, systematized form and, with support from members of the Academy of Sciences, helped introduce a rigorous framework for chemical analysis, synthesis, and experimentation. He also championed the development of the metric system and advocated standardized methods for weighing and measuring.

Lavoisier collaborated with his wife, Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, who translated essential works, conducted experiments, and illustrated his texts, contributing to the dissemination of chemical knowledge. He was guillotined in 1794 during the French Revolution, a victim of the era's political turmoil. His legacy lies in the establishment of modern chemical nomenclature, the law of conservation of mass, and the experimental approach that underpins contemporary chemistry.