1. Antoine_Laurent Lavoisier
Who the heck is this guy?

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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 cubic inches.
The conclusion: the additional weight of the new red mercury was exactly equal to the missing 8 cubic inches of air!

5. 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.