Knowing the Pioneers
Antoine Lavoisier
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier was a French nobleman and chemist central to the 18th-century chemical revolution and had a large influence on both the history of chemistry and the history of biology . He is widely considered in popular literature as the " father of modern chemistry ". Lavoisier could not fulfill the hope of his father to become a lawyer since he was very interested with scisince he was very interested with science . He thought that science was more interesting for him . Since he got a lot of money from the inheritance of his mother , he was able to pursue all of his interests .
The Conservation of Mass In 1778 Lavoisier found that when mercury oxide is heated its weight decreases . The oxygen gas it releases has exactly the same weight as the weight lost by the mercury oxide . While this may seem obvious to us today , it was less so in those days ( hence the general support for the phlogiston theory ). After carrying out work with a number of different substances , and recalling earlier work such as his work in 1772 with carbon , Lavoisier announced a new fundamental law of nature : the law of conservation of mass .
Image Source : http :// imageweb-cdn . magnoliasoft . net / royalsociety / supersize / rs-2268 . jpg
11