Antoine_Laurent Lavoisier Who the heck is this guy?
Father of Modern Chemistry In 1789 he determined that “Matter cannot be Created or Destroyed” Law of conservation of Mass- this is critical to understanding that atoms simply rearrange in chemical reactions.
Lavoisier’s Experiments 1. Stressed the importance of careful measurements in experiments. 2. Created a new language of chemistry- defending why matter is not lost or gained during chemical reactions- only rearranged.
More on his experiments 3. Studied combustion (burning) and debunked the notion of phlogiston, here’s how. A. he designed an air-tight reaction chamber and oven. Put liquid mercury into the chamber and heated it for 12 days. Results: reddish solid formed and it weighed more than the original mercury. Also, the volume of air in the chamber was reduced from 50-42 cubic inches. The conclusion: the additional weight of the new red mercury was exactly equal to the missing 8 cubic inches of air!
Other Contributions Developed a system for naming chemicals. Wrote the first chemistry textbook entitled “The Elements of Chemistry” Weird and wild fact: he was beheaded because he was a tax collector, very wealthy and angered the French peasants during the French Revolution.