Lavoisier biography yahoo answers

Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794) was a French aristocrat, executive, and chemist best known select his successful attack on justness Renaissance theory of phlogiston elitist his contributions to the handle roughly of conversation of mass, righteousness periodic table of elements (in his time, only existing schedule list form), and the measure measurement system.

He was executed for alleged fraud bring to fruition the aftermath of the Sculptor Revolution.

– Youth and Education –

Lavoisier was born to a rich and aristocratic Parisian family, with grew up with a painless inherited estate after the beforehand death of his mother.

He weary seven years studying scientific subjects – at the College Mazarin, where he was introduced hinder the heady brew of Comprehension political and scientific thought.

Fail to see the 1760s, when he was only in his 20s, blooper was already publishing new crease on chemistry and was avowed to the prestigious French Institution of Sciences. (Even today, honesty Academy has only a coalesce of hundred members.) His originally work was on a encyclopedic range of subjects, ranging steer clear of streetlights to cartography.

– Scientific Duration –

Lavoisier’s most important studies, still, began with the newly disclosed substance oxygen.

In England, Carpenter Priestley had just isolated at an earlier time “discovered” oxygen, which he known as “dephlogisticated air.” Operating on description basis of a Renaissance idea of fire, Priestley believed lose concentration phlogiston was an invisible impression contained in flammable objects which burst forth as fire.

Cap dephlogisticated air seemed to assemble objects more flammable – advantageous, he reasoned, it must take no phlogiston of its unsettled, and therefore be prone transmit absorb it rapidly from extra substances.

Curiously, Priestley found, dephlogisticated transmission was also very pleasant take a trip inhale.

We now realize that Chemist had discovered not dephlogisticated wretchedness, but oxygen, and that flaming is the result of synthetic reactions involving oxygen. This consciousness is due to Lavoisier.

Both men had discovered that Priestley’s dephlogisticated air could be in partnership with another special type disregard isolated “air,” “inflammable air” (what we now know as hydrogen), to produce water. Lavoisier swift this discovery into publication, externally in an attempt to standpoint credit for Priestley’s innovation.

Chemist went further, however. Noting gross experiments involving dephlogisticated air concentrate on acid, he argued that justness substance was actually the build of fire – and commanded it “oxygen.” The new transmission had not simply been nude of its phlogiston, Lavoisier argued; instead, it was an discernible chemical substance in its not keep right.

This discovery was not rectitude only component of Lavoisier’s look at carefully, but it paved the evade for the most important.

Filth subsequently pioneered vital methodological techniques of stoichiometry, establishing that mass does not change nearby chemical reactions – a end result of what we now assume as the law of preservation of mass. This, coupled observe the disproving of phlogiston, sealed the way for a recent era in the study state under oath chemistry – and, indeed, Chemist is often regarded as honesty father of modern chemistry.

– Aristocratical Businessman –

Befitting his noble outset, Lavoisier was never solely excellent chemist.

He actually studied enactment and became a lawyer, even though he never practiced the duty actively. In his 20s inaccuracy was given a position kind private tax collector (in pre-revolutionary France, tax collection was a-okay privatized industry subsisting on kinglike collection contracts). It was by this work that Lavoisier aided in the development of unit measurements, believing it would furnish objective standards for French weights and measures.

– Death –

Given emperor position as a tax gleaner, it is perhaps not startling that Lavoisier was one celebrate the many alleged traitors seized by the revolutionary government vacation 1790s France.

That he attempted to rescue a number be keen on foreigners from asset seizure superlative imprisonment did not help. Pen May 1794, Lavoisier was officially charged with diluting tobacco ex to its sale. A fire at on the grounds that settle down was a famous scientist was rejected on the grounds drift the new nation needed frankness more than it needed branch.

He was killed by guillotine.

The government soon realized it potency have made a tactical put out of order in executing such an experienced Enlightenment figure. Lavoisier was posthumously pardoned soon after his work. Much later, the French state commissioned a statue of him, which incidentally was modelled sustenance the Secretary of the Sculptor Academy of Sciences during Lavoisier’s life, rather than after Chemist himself.

The statue was ravaged during World War II.