Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier

(1743-1794)

Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier was born in the family of a wealthy Parisian lawyer. He completed a law degree in accordance with family wishes. But his real interest was in science. On the basis of his earliest scientific work, he was elected in 1768 to the Academy of Science, France's most elite scientific society. A few years later he married Marie-Anne Picrette Paulze. Madam Lavoisier prepared herself to be her husband's scientific collaborator by learning English to translate the work of British chemists.

In 1775 Lavoisier was appointed a commissioner of the Royal Gunpowder and Saltpetre Administration and took up residence in the Paris Arsenal. There he equipped a fine laboratory. He succeeded in producing more and better gunpowder, by increasing the supply and ensuring the purity of the constituents-saltpetre, sulfur, charcoal as well as by improving the methods of granulating the powder.

Characteristic of Lavoisier's chemistry was his systematic determination of the weights of reagents and products involved in chemical reactions including the gaseous components. Among his contributions to chemistry were the understanding of combustion and respiration as caused by chemical reactions with the part of the air he called “oxygen”, and his definitive proof by composition and decomposition that water is made up of oxygen and hydrogen. These names are still used today. These terms expressed the theory that oxygen was the acidifying principle. He considered thirty-three substances as "elements" by his definition, and substances that chemical analyses had failed to break down into simpler entities. Among these substances was “caloric”- the unweighable substance of heat, light, that caused other substances to expand when it was added to them.

To propogate his ideas, in 1789 he published a textbook on chemistry, Traite elementaire de chimie, and began a journal, Annales de Chimie, which carried research reports about the new chemistry almost exclusively.

Lavoisier took an active part in all political and social events, leading to the French Revolution. But, despite his eminence and his services to science and France, he came under attack and was guillotined in 1794.

(Adapted from the Internet sites)

6.4 For further information on the biographies of the famous scientists and their achievements use Hotlist - Famous Scientists WebQuest

http://www.kn.sbc.com/wired/fil/pages/webwebquestel.html

Дата добавления: 2015-08-03