Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier

Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (Paris, August 26, 1743 – Paris, May 8, 1794) was one of the major founders of modern chemistry. He studied experimentally the chemical reactivity of oxygen, recognizing it is a chemical element, thus rejecting the phlogiston hypothesis, and he discovered that the reaction of hydrogen with oxygen gives pure water.

Lavoisier was one of the authors of the modern system for naming chemical substances. Having served as a tax collector before the French Revolution, he was executed together with other public administrators during the reign of terror.

Biography

Lavoisier was the oldest child and only son of a wealthy upper-middle class family. As a boy he showed an unusual studiousness. He went to the the prestigious Collège Mazarin where he was taught humanities, mathematics, and sciences. After graduation, he enrolled as a law student at the Parisian law faculty. Since this study was easy for him he had much time to follow lectures on chemistry and physics and to do laboratory work under the tutelage of leading naturalists.

After obtaining his law degree, Lavoisier, like his father and his maternal grandfather before him, was admitted to the Order of Barristers, whose members presented cases before the High Court (Parlement) of Paris. However, Lavoisier did not start a law practice, but instead began pursuing scientific research that in 1768 gained him admission into one of France's most prestigious societies, the Académie des Sciences in Paris.