Antoine Lavoisier, a French chemist, philosopher, economist, and biologist, is considered the first to formulate the law of conservation of matter, which means that the mass of substances resulting from a chemical reaction is equal to the mass of the reactants. -which was centered on the combustion process-, and also contributed to the naming of chemical elements, so he was called the "Father of Modern Chemistry". He was guillotined by the revolutionaries of the French Revolution in 1794.
Birth and upbringing
Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier was born on August 26, 1743 in the French capital, Paris, the only son of a wealthy bourgeois family who lived in the city of lights.
His mother died in 1748 when he was five years old, and he inherited a great fortune from her that helped him in his field.
From a young age, Lavoisier showed extraordinary abilities and a great passion for studying, learning, and interest in public affairs as well. He studied chemistry, botany, astronomy, mathematics, and even law.
In 1771, Lavoisier married Marie-Anne Perret Boules, who was 14 years old, and her father worked in the same establishment as Lavoisier.
Antoine Lavoisier studied law at the University of Paris and graduated in 1763 (Shutterstock)
Scientific study and training
Antoine Lavoisier began his academic career at the College de Quatre Nation in 1754, where he studied chemistry, botany, astronomy and mathematics until 1761, when he joined the University of Paris, where he studied law and graduated in 1763.
Lavoisier was attending public and private lectures on chemistry, physics and botany, and worked under the tutelage of prominent natural scientists at the time between 1754 and 1761, and his first publication in the field of chemistry appeared in 1764. During his university studies, he worked on studying the geology of the Alsace-Lorraine region under the auspices of his father's friend Henri Louis Duhamel de Monceau in 1767.
Upon completion of his legal studies, Lavoisier was admitted to the Bar Association (his father and maternal grandfather were also members of it), whose members were pleading cases before the Supreme Court in Paris.
But instead of practicing law, Lavoisier began to pursue his scientific research in the field of chemistry, which culminated in 1768 with his admission to the most important French institution of natural philosophy, the Academy of Sciences in Paris.
During that period, he did not have children, so his wife devoted herself to helping him in his research, and with the passage of time, she became his assistant in his work and research, and she translated many documents written in English, unlike her husband, who failed to learn them.
Mary translated Richard Kirwan's article on the theory of phlogiston and Joseph Priestley's research, prepared numerous drawings and engravings of laboratory instruments used by Lavoisier and his colleagues, contributed to the writing and publication of her husband's memoirs, and worked to organize scientific meetings in which prominent scientists participated to discuss ideas and issues related to the field of chemistry.
Mary Ann devoted herself to assisting her husband in his research and translated a number of documents written in English (Getty Images)
Scientific and practical experience
Since 1775, Lavoisier worked in the Royal Department of Gunpowder, contributing to the development of gunpowder production that made France self-sufficient in important military materials. He also worked to improve the field of agricultural chemistry by devising a new method for producing saltpeter with potash from the Alsace region.
On the other hand, Lavoisier's study of law was of great importance in his life, as this prompted him to take an interest in the political affairs of the French state, so he got a job in the tax administration at the age of 26, and tried to introduce reforms in the French monetary system and the tax system as well, and participated in the development of the system Metric to reform and standardize weights and measures throughout France.
He received a large inheritance after the death of his mother, so he was able to create a large fortune that enabled him to establish a large laboratory equipped with all the equipment he needed in his work and research, and he was able to buy a share in the tax collection institution that had a partnership with the royal government to collect some sales taxes and excises such as those imposed On salt and tobacco.
Lavoisier spent a great deal of time managing tax collections, receiving generous rewards for his efforts, and although chemistry was his passion, he devoted much of his life to financial and administrative affairs.
Oxygen combustion theory
The oxygen combustion theory of Antoine Lavoisier was the result of a series of arduous and continuous scientific research with the aim of formulating an experimental chemical theory based mainly on combustion, respiration and calcification (a process in which a solid sample is exposed to high temperatures in the presence or absence of oxygen), and this theory contradicts the Phlogiston theory that assumes that combustion It is caused by the presence of a flammable element in all materials called "phlogiston".
That is why it was then that it required providing strong evidence to support a new theory more than simply showing the errors and shortcomings of the previous phlogiston theory, and from the beginning of the seventies of the eighteenth century until the year 1785, when the latest research was applied from the theory, Lavoisier and his collaborators conducted a wide range of experiments designed to advance many points at the level of their research.
Lavoisier's research focused in the early seventies on the weight gained and lost during the calcination process, and it was known that when the minerals are converted into powder (calcimer), the weight of the powder was greater than the weight of the original mineral, while when the powder is converted into a mineral, its weight decreases.
Lavoisier studied the composition of water and discovered the elements "oxygen" and "hydrogen" and named them (Getty Images)
Phlogiston theory did not take weight changes into account, because fire could not be isolated and weighed, so Lavoisier assumed the possibility of fixing and liberating air, not fire, and that it was the cause of the noticeable changes in the level of weight, and this idea determined the course of Lavoisier's research in the following years.
Lavoisier then faced phenomena related to his research that required an explanation and explanation, such as mineral acids that were made by burning sulfur in a fire and then mixing the resulting powder with water. It was never clear what kind of air makes sulfur acidic.
The problem was further complicated by the simultaneous discovery by British researchers of new types of air within the atmosphere.
These researchers were led by Joseph Priestley, who helped Lavoisier uncover the mystery of oxygen. Despite his strict commitment and defense of the phlogiston theory, he was able to isolate oxygen in August 1774 after identifying many of the properties that distinguished it from atmospheric air.
At the time, Lavoisier and his colleagues in Paris were experimenting with the same set of identical reactions that Priestley was studying, but they failed to notice the new properties of the air they collected.
When Priestley visited Paris later that year, and at a dinner given in his honor at the Academy of Sciences he informed his French colleagues of the properties of this new air. Lavoisier hurried back to his laboratory and repeated the experiment, finding that it produced exactly the kind of air he needed to complete his theory. He reached it with oxygen and described it as an acid generator, and this discovery allowed him to explain the quantitative and qualitative changes that occur during the process of combustion, respiration and calcification as well.
Law of Conservation of Matter
Lavoisier's experiments are among the first quantitative chemical experiments ever conducted, and because of them he was able to transfer chemistry, which was seen as a set of practices related to the transformation of substances and minerals with a symbolic dimension and spiritual purpose, to the modern chemistry that he is credited with establishing.
He was able to prove that the substance changes in the case of a chemical reaction, but the total mass of the reactants and products remains the same from the beginning to the end of the reaction, and these experiments were proofs on the basis of the law of conservation of matter.
Lavoisier also studied the composition of water, and called its components "oxygen" and "hydrogen".
In 1787, Lavoisier and 3 of his colleagues published new basics for naming chemicals that are still used recently (Getty Images)
Lavoisier, leader of the chemical revolution
In the history of chemistry, Lavoisier is described as the "leader of the chemical revolution" in the 18th century, and he is considered one of the founders of modern chemistry. His experiments and works were based on explanation, measurement, and proof, and his research and theories raised chemistry to the level of a rigorous and accurate science.
Lavoisier was a rich, sophisticated, and very ambitious person, and his scientific achievements contributed greatly to the establishment of modern chemistry, and for this reason those who worked with him respected him and greatly revered him and took him as an example. His scientific achievements contributed to creating a chemical revolution that changed human life during the 18th century.
In addition, Antoine Lavoisier is very fortunate, because his great contributions to the chemical revolution came a few years before the turmoil that France experienced during the revolution in 1789.
By 1785, his new theory of combustion had gained significant support, and other scholars quickly adopted it, and the campaign to rebuild chemistry according to its principles began.
In 1787, Lavoisier and 3 of his colleagues published New Fundamentals of Nomenclature of Chemicals, which were soon widely accepted, thanks largely to Lavoisier's reputation as a great researcher and scientist, and also to the cultural authority of Paris and the fame of the French Academy of Sciences. Chemical nomenclature used to this day.
Two years later, Lavoisier published an article in chemistry describing the precise methods that chemists must use when researching, organizing and explaining their topics. This was the culmination of many research works and achievements that worked to reformulate chemistry as a modern science.
The execution of Lavoisier after the French Revolution
When the French Revolution began in 1789, Lavoisier (who held the position of director of the Royal Department of Gunpowder), like many philosophically minded administrators, saw the revolution as an opportunity to rationalize and improve the politics and economy of the French state, but the level of this optimism was soon reduced by the unrest and violence that exposed the state French risk.
Lavoisier continued to advise revolutionary governments on finance and other matters, and neither he nor his wife considered fleeing France, especially when popular anger turned against those who exercised power and enjoyed social privileges under the monarchy that ruled the country.
With the passage of time, the revolution became more radical and increasingly inclined to violence, and its leaders began to pursue a policy of intimidation and intimidation to control the government in the country, and for his part, Lavoisier continued to defend the French Academy of Sciences and its members and the need to protect them, because they were loyal to the French state that was not in rich about them.
But Lavoisier's rhetoric fell out of favor with the revolutionaries, and he soon found himself imprisoned with other members of the tax-collecting establishment in order to "purify the French Republic of its monarchical past".
During his trial, his wife intervened to ask for his pardon, but one of the officials in the courtroom responded with harsh words that considered a "disgrace" in the history of the French Revolution, "The Republic has no need for scientists or chemists, the court's decision cannot be postponed."
In May 1794, Lavoisier was executed by guillotine, accompanied by his father-in-law, and 26 of the symbols of the old regime, and in recognition of his scientific standing, one of his contemporary scholars, Joseph Louis Lagrange, commented, saying, "It took them (the revolutionaries) one moment to cut off Lavoisier's head, but A hundred years is not enough to find someone like him.