Lavoisier biography resumen de laurent

He predicted the existence of silicon [ 6 ] and discovered that, although matter may change its form or shape, its mass always remains the same. His wife and laboratory assistant, Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisierbecame a renowned chemist in her own right. At the height of the French Revolution, he was charged with tax fraud and selling adulterated tobaccoand was guillotined despite appeals to spare his life in recognition of his contributions to science.

A year and a half later, he was exonerated by the French government. Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier was born to a wealthy family of the nobility in Paris on 26 August The son of an attorney at the Parlement of Parishe inherited a large fortune at the age of five upon the death of his mother. In his last two years — at the school, his scientific interests were aroused, and he studied chemistrybotanyastronomyand mathematics.

Lavoisier entered the school of law, where he received a bachelor's degree in and a licentiate in Lavoisier received a law degree and was admitted to the barbut never practiced as a lawyer. However, he continued his scientific education in his spare time. Lavoisier's education was filled with the ideals of the French Enlightenment of the time, and he was fascinated by Pierre Macquer 's dictionary of chemistry.

He attended lectures in the natural sciences. His first chemical publication appeared in In collaboration with Guettard, Lavoisier worked on a geological survey of Alsace-Lorraine in June In he read his first paper to the French Academy of SciencesFrance's most elite scientific society, on the chemical and physical properties of gypsum hydrated calcium sulfateand in he was awarded a gold medal by the King for an essay on the problems of urban street lighting.

While Lavoisier is commonly known for his contributions to the sciences, he also dedicated a significant portion of his fortune and work toward benefitting the public. Three years later inhe focused on a new project to design an aqueduct.

Lavoisier biography resumen de laurent: French chemist and leading

The goal was to bring water from the river Yvette into Paris so that the citizens could have clean drinking water. But, since the construction never commenced, he instead turned his focus to purifying the water from the Seine. This was the project that interested Lavoisier in the chemistry of water and public sanitation duties. Additionally, he was interested in air quality and spent some time studying the health risks associated with gunpowder's effect on the air.

At the time, the prisons in Paris were known to be largely unlivable and the prisoners' treatment inhumane. Once a part of the academy, Lavoisier also held his own competitions to push the direction of research towards bettering the public and his own work. Lavoisier had a vision of public education having roots in "scientific sociability" and philanthropy.

Lavoisier biography resumen de laurent: In we see Lavoisier take his

Lavoisier gained a vast majority of his income through buying stock in the General Farmwhich allowed him to work on science full-time, live comfortably, and allowed him to contribute financially to better the community. It was very difficult to secure public funding for the sciences at the time, and additionally not very financially profitable for the average scientist, so Lavoisier used his wealth to open a very expensive and sophisticated laboratory in France so that aspiring scientists could study without the barriers of securing funding for their research.

He also pushed for public education in the sciences. In addition, she assisted him in the laboratory and created many sketches and carved engravings of the laboratory instruments used by Lavoisier and his colleagues for their scientific works. Madame Lavoisier edited and published Antoine's memoirs whether any English translations of those memoirs have survived is unknown as of today and hosted parties at which eminent scientists discussed ideas and problems related to chemistry.

Completed in on the eve of the Revolution, the painting was denied a customary public display at the Paris Salon for fear that it might inflame anti-aristocratic passions. He did, however, present one important memoir to the Academy of Sciences during this period, on the supposed conversion of water into earth by evaporation. By a very precise quantitative experiment, Lavoisier showed that the "earthy" sediment produced after long-continued reflux heating of water in a glass vessel was not due to a conversion of the water into earth but rather to the gradual disintegration of the inside of the glass vessel produced by the boiling water.

He also attempted to introduce reforms in the French monetary and taxation system to help the peasants. The Farmers General held a monopoly of the production, import and sale of tobacco in France, and the taxes they levied on tobacco brought revenues of 30 million livres a year. This revenue began to fall because of a growing black market in tobacco that was smuggled and adulterated, most commonly with ash and water.

Lavoisier devised a method of checking whether ash had been mixed in with tobacco: "When a spirit of vitriolaqua fortis or some other acid solution is poured on ash, there is an immediate very intense effervescent reaction, accompanied by an easily detected noise. Lavoisier also noticed that the addition of a small amount of ash improved the flavour of tobacco.

Of one vendor selling adulterated goods, he wrote "His tobacco enjoys a very good reputation in the province Perhaps the Farm could gain some advantage by adding a bit of this liquid mixture when the tobacco is fabricated. Thereafter the factories of the Farmers General added, as he recommended, a consistent 6. He was energetic and rigorous in implementing this, and the systems he introduced were deeply unpopular with the tobacco retailers across the country.

This unpopularity was to have consequences for him during the French Revolution. Lavoisier urged the establishment of a Royal Commission on Agriculture. He then served as its Secretary and spent considerable sums of his own money in order to improve the agricultural yields in the Solognean area where farmland was of poor quality. The humidity of the region often led to a blight of the rye harvest, causing outbreaks of ergotism among the population.

In Lavoisier presented a report to the Commission detailing ten years of efforts on his experimental farm to introduce new lavoisier biographies resumen de laurent and types of livestock. His conclusion was that despite the possibilities of agricultural reforms, the tax system left tenant farmers with so little that it was unrealistic to expect them to change their traditional practices.

There were also innumerable reports for and committees of the Academy of Sciences to investigate specific problems on order of the royal government. Lavoisier, whose organizing skills were outstanding, frequently landed the task of writing up such official reports. As a result of his efforts, both the quantity and quality of French gunpowder greatly improved, and it became a source of revenue for the government.

His appointment to the Gunpowder Commission brought one great benefit to Lavoisier's scientific career as well. As a commissioner, he enjoyed both a house and a laboratory in the Royal Arsenal. Here he lived and worked between and In JuneLavoisier made a loan of 71, livres to Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours to buy a printing works so that du Pont could publish a newspaper, La Correspondance Patriotique.

The plan was for this to include both reports of debates in the National Constituent Assembly as well as papers from the Academy of Sciences. Lavoisier also chaired the commission set up to establish a uniform system of weights and measures [ 25 ] [ 26 ] which in March recommended the adoption of the metric system. Although temporarily going into hiding, on 30 November he handed himself into the Port Royal convent for questioning.

He claimed he had not operated on this commission for many years, having instead devoted himself to science. Lavoisier himself was removed from the commission on weights and measures on 23 Decembertogether with mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace and several other members, for political reasons. One of his last major works was a proposal to the National Convention for the reform of French education.

He also intervened on behalf of a number of foreign-born scientists including mathematician Joseph Louis Lagrangehelping to exempt them from a mandate stripping all foreigners of possessions and freedom. On 24 Novemberthe arrest of all the former tax farmers was ordered. Lavoisier and the other Farmers General faced nine accusations of defrauding the state of money owed to it, and of adding water to tobacco before selling it.

Lavoisier drafted their defense, refuting the financial accusations, reminding the court of how they had maintained a consistently high quality of tobacco. The court, however, was inclined to believe that by condemning them and seizing the goods of the Farmers General, it would recover huge sums for the state. A year and a half after his execution, Lavoisier was completely exonerated by the French government.

During the White Terrorhis belongings were delivered to his widow. A brief note was included, reading "To the widow of Lavoisier, who was falsely convicted". An apocryphal [ 37 ] story exists regarding Lavoisier's execution in which the scientist blinked his eyes to demonstrate that the head retained some consciousness after being severed. This story was not recorded in contemporary "lavoisier biographies resumen de laurent" of Lavoisier's death, and the execution site was too removed from the public for Lagrange to have viewed Lavoisier's alleged experiment.

The story likely originated in a s Discovery Channel documentary about guillotines and then subsequently spread online, becoming what one source describes as an urban legend. Contrary to prevailing thought at the time, Lavoisier theorized that common air, or one of its components, combines with substances when they are burned. During late Lavoisier turned his attention to the phenomenon of combustionthe topic on which he was to make his most significant contribution to science.

He reported the results of his first experiments on combustion in a note to the Academy on 20 October, in which he reported that when phosphorus burned, it combined with a large quantity of air to produce acid spirit of phosphorusand that the phosphorus increased in weight on burning. In a second sealed note deposited with the academy a few weeks later 1 November Lavoisier extended his observations and conclusions to the burning of sulfur and went on to add that "what is observed in the combustion of sulfur and phosphorus may well take place in the case of all substances that gain in weight by combustion and calcination: and I am persuaded that the increase in weight of metallic calces is due to the same cause.

During Lavoisier determined to review thoroughly the literature on air, particularly "fixed air," and to repeat many of the experiments of other workers in the field. He published an account of this review in in a book entitled Opuscules physiques et chimiques Physical and Chemical Essays. In the course of this review, he made his first full study of the work of Joseph Blackthe Scottish chemist who had carried out a series of classic quantitative experiments on the mild and caustic alkalies.

Black had shown that the difference between a mild alkali, for example, chalk CaCO 3and the caustic form, for example, quicklime CaOlay in the fact that the former contained "fixed air," not common air fixed in the chalk, but a distinct chemical species, now understood to be carbon dioxide CO 2which was a constituent of the atmosphere.

Lavoisier recognized that Black's fixed air was identical with the air evolved when metal calces were reduced with charcoal and even suggested that the air which combined with metals on calcination and increased the weight might be Black's fixed air, that is, CO 2. In the spring ofLavoisier carried out experiments on the calcination of tin and lead in sealed vessels, the results of which conclusively confirmed that the increase in weight of metals in combustion was due to combination with air.

But the question remained about whether it was in combination with common atmospheric air or with only a part of atmospheric air. In October the English chemist Joseph Priestley visited Paris, where he met Lavoisier and told him of the air which he had produced by heating the red calx of mercury with a burning glass and which had supported combustion with extreme vigor.

Priestley at this time was unsure of the nature of this gas, but he felt that it was an especially pure form of common air.

Lavoisier biography resumen de laurent: On this date in ,

Lavoisier carried out his own research on this peculiar substance. In the original memoir, Lavoisier showed that the mercury calx was a true metallic calx in that it could be reduced with charcoalgiving off Black's fixed air in the process. He concluded that this was just a pure form of common air and that it was the air itself "undivided, without alteration, without decomposition" which combined with metals on calcination.

After returning from Paris, Priestley took up once again his investigation of the air from mercury calx. His results now showed that this air was not just an especially pure form of common air but was "five or six times better than common air, for the purpose of respiration, inflammation, and He called the air dephlogisticated air, as he thought it was common air deprived of its phlogiston.

Since it was therefore in a state to absorb a much greater quantity of phlogiston given off by burning bodies and respiring animals, the greatly enhanced combustion of substances and the greater ease of breathing in this air were explained. Lavoisier's researches included some of the first truly quantitative chemical experiments.

He carefully weighed the reactants and products of a chemical reaction in a sealed glass vessel so that no gases could escape, which was a crucial step in the advancement of chemistry. Thus, for instance, if a piece of wood is burned to ashes, the total mass remains unchanged if gaseous reactants and products are included.

Lavoisier biography resumen de laurent: Antoine Laurent Lavoisier is considered to

Lavoisier's experiments supported the law of conservation of mass. The classical elements of earth, air, fire, and water were discarded, and instead some 33 substances which could not be decomposed into simpler substances by any known chemical means were provisionally listed as elements. The acids, regarded in the new system as compounds of various elements with oxygen, were given names which indicated the element involved together with the degree of oxygenation of that element, for example sulfuric and sulfurous acids, phosphoric and phosphorous acids, nitric and nitrous acids, the "ic" termination indicating acids with a higher proportion of oxygen than those with the "ous" ending.

Similarly, salts of the "ic" acids were given the terminal letters "ate," as in copper sulfate, whereas the salts of the "ous" acids terminated with the suffix "ite," as in copper sulfite. The total effect of the new nomenclature can be gauged by comparing the new name " copper sulfate " with the old term "vitriol of Venus. This marked the beginning of the anti-phlogistic approach to the field.

Lavoisier is commonly cited as a central contributor to the chemical revolution. His precise measurements and meticulous keeping of balance sheets throughout his experiment were vital to the widespread acceptance of the law of conservation of mass. His introduction of new terminology, a binomial system modeled after that of Linnaeusalso helps to mark the dramatic changes in the field which are referred to generally as the chemical revolution.

Lavoisier encountered much opposition in trying to change the field, especially from British phlogistic scientists. Joseph Priestley, Richard KirwanJames Keirand William Nicholsonamong others, argued that quantification of substances did not imply conservation of mass. One of Lavoisier's allies, Jean Baptiste Biotwrote of Lavoisier's methodology, "one felt the necessity of linking accuracy in experiments to rigor of reasoning.

Despite opposition, Lavoisier continued to use precise instrumentation to convince other chemists of his conclusions, often results to five to eight decimal places. Nicholson, who estimated that only three of these decimal places were meaningful, stated:. If it be denied that these results are pretended to be true in the last figures, I must beg leave to observe, that these long rows of figures, which in some instances extend to a thousand times the nicety of experiment, serve only to exhibit a parade which true science has no need of: and, more than this, that when the real degree of accuracy in experiments is thus hidden from our contemplation, we are somewhat disposed to doubt whether the exactitude scrupuleuse of the experiments be indeed such as to render the proofs de l'ordre demonstratif.

This new nomenclature was published inand it swayed even more chemists to adopt the new chemistry. Nevertheless, Lavoisier did not always hit on the right theories for the right reasons. For example, he believed that acidity was caused by the presence of oxygen in a compound. Lavoisier concluded in that oxygen was the part of a compound that was responsible for the property of acidity because he had isolated it from so many acids.

In fact, oxygen means "acid former. Although these concepts turned out to be wrong, the thinking behind them is important since it represented the first systematic attempt to chemically characterize acids and bases. Lavoisier was not only interested in the theoretical aspects of chemistry. He also devoted much of his time to studying more practical topics, such as the best ways of lighting streets in a large town.

In addition, Lavoisier took part in the development of what was to become the metric system and he was involved in improving the manufacture of gunpowder. Although Lavoisier was independently wealthy, thanks to a considerable fortune inherited from his mother, he sought to increase his wealth in order to pursue his scientific career on a larger scale.

For this reason, he entered the Ferme, a private company whose members purchased the privilege of collecting national taxes. During the French Revolutionthe tax collectors of the Ferme were the subject of popular hatred. Although he carried out his duties honestly, Lavoisier was associated with the perceived corruption of the tax collection system.

At the height of the Revolution, Lavoisier was arrested and executed by beheading in Lavoisier's untimely death ended an era in the history of chemistry. With his contributions to chemistry ranging from developing the modern concept of combustion to establishing the language of chemistry, Lavoisier provided the foundation for the study of chemistry as a modern science.

Donovan, Arthur Antoine Lavoisier: Science, Administration and Revolution. Oxford, U. Jaffe, Bernard New York : Dover. Yount, Lisa Antoine Lavoisier: Founder of Modern Chemistry. Springfield, NJ: Enslow Publishers. Beretta, Marco, ed. Poirier, Jean-Pierre. Scratch, Lydia S. During this period Lavoisier was elected to the Academy of Sciences on the basis of some work he had done with Guettard.

A talented linguist and artist, she translated English scientific publications into French for her husband and drew the illustrations for his papers and books. During the s this research centered on combustion and calcination the formation of a powdery substance, or calx, from roasting a metal or mineral. In the spring ofLavoisier served as a member of a committee formed by the Academy of Sciences to study the disappearance of diamonds when they were intensely heated.

He was eventually able to establish that the diamonds' destruction was due to combustion, with fixed air which he would later name " carbon dioxide " as the product. Some scholars have proposed that Lavoisier's important work on combustion originated in his research on chemical effervescence, a process in which certain substances, when heated, release a gas.

In the summer of he found that litharge, a lead ore, when heated with charcoal produced both lead and a gas. He also knew that metals absorbed air to form calxes. Further studies in the fall showed that phosphorus combined with a large quantity of air when it burned, as did sulfur. At this time Lavoisier mistakenly believed that this weight gain accompanying combustion and calcination was due to fixed air.

His confusion was not resolved until the English chemist Joseph Priestley —on his visit to Paris, informed him of his discovery of a new gas that he had called "dephlogisticated air. With apparatus and techniques superior to Priestley's, Lavoisier was able to confirm and extend the English chemist's work on this "eminently respirable air. Because the vital air aiding combustion formed acids when it combined with such nonmetals as sulfur and phosphorus, Lavoisier called it oxygen from the Greek roots signifying "acid producer.

He also criticized the phlogiston theorywhich interpreted combustion as the liberation of a constituent called phlogiston from burnable substances. During the s, Lavoisier extended his oxygen theory to include respiration and the composition of water. He and Pierre-Simon de Laplace — did a series of experiments on living things in which they found that a guinea piglike a candle flame, generated both heat and carbon dioxide.

Influenced by the experiments of English chemist Henry Cavendish — on "inflammable air," whose combustion produced water, Lavoisier argued that water is actually a compound of two gases, hydrogen his name for "inflammable air" and oxygen. Although Lavoisier denigrated Cavendish's interpretation of his discovery in terms of the phlogiston theorymodern scholars, while admitting the superiority of Lavoisier's explanation, think that he went too far in claiming that he should be credited with the discovery of water's compound nature.

To help establish his new oxygen theory, Lavoisier and his principal French followers published a book on chemical nomenclature that helped establish a new and clearer language for chemistry. This first textbook of the new chemistry contained a table of elements and the first clear statement of the law of the conservation of matter. During the final five years of his life, Lavoisier participated in the development and implementation of the metric systemimproved French gunpowder, suggested hospital and prison reforms, and published influential papers on experimental farming and economics.

Despite his services to science and the state, he was unfortunate in being a political moderate at a time of extremists. Induring the Reign of Terrorhe and many other tax farmers were guillotined. Neither his head nor his body has ever been found. Duveen, Denis I. London, This book, whose goal was to gather information on all Lavoisier's publications, had to be supplemented with another work published inwhich also included items written about Lavoisier up to Lavoisier, Antoine-Laurent.

Oeuvres de Lavoisier. Paris, Donovan, Arthur. Antoine Lavoisier: Science, Administration, and Revolution. Cambridge, U. A comprehensive biography of the scientist and public figure for general readers. Lavoisier: Chemist, Biologist, Economist. Translated by Rebecca Balinski. Philadelphia, When this biography was published in French insome reviewers stated that it supplanted all previous biographies and became the standard treatment of Lavoisier's life and work.

A ntoine Lavoisier is regarded as the founder of modern chemistry. Although he made few discoveries of new substances or processes, his work in chemical theory provided a synthesis of the discoveries of his contemporaries and a framework upon which subsequent work could be based. He is perhaps best known for his discovery of the role that oxygen plays in combustion, his statement of the conservation of matter in chemical reactions, his clarification of the difference between elements and compounds moleculesand his part in the development of the modern system of chemical nomenclature.

The son of a prosperous lawyer, Lavoisier was educated at the College Mazarin, where he began his scientific studies after initially studying lavoisier biography resumen de laurent. His early scientific publications led to his election to the Royal Academy of Sciences inat age His father bought a title of nobility for him inand he became a member of the Farmers-General, a private company that collected taxes for the royal government.

His personal wealth and political influence grew, and as a member of the Gunpowder Commission, he lived in the Paris Arsenal, where he set up a private laboratory to test the results of chemical experiments performed by others and to carry out his own. In he was appointed Secretary of the Treasury. Even though Lavoisier was involved in social reforms, such as old age pensions, and supported liberal political causes, after the revolution he was regarded with suspicion because of his previous close connection with the royal government.

He was arrested and imprisoned intried, and executed by guillotine in Lavoisier's contribution to the lavoisier biography resumen de laurent of modern chemistry was principally in the area of theory. He confirmed, consolidated, extended, and explained the many new discoveries made by his contemporaries on the European continent and in England, especially those of Joseph BlackHenry Cavendishand Joseph Priestley The result was a new theoretical understanding of chemical processes that provided the framework for the development of chemistry as a modern science.

Lavoisier discovered the part that oxygen plays in combustion burning and developed a theory that explained combustion, the oxidation of metals, and respiration as all being similar reactions of chemical substances with oxygen gas. Additionally, his theory of combustion discredited the phlogiston theorywhich had been a major detriment to scientific progress.

Although not the first to employ careful quantitative methods in the study of chemical processes, his endorsement and use of them was significant in the development of chemistry as a quantitative physical science. The use of a calorimeter by Lavoisier and Pierre Simon Laplace to measure specific heats and heats of reaction was an important step in the founding of thermochemistry.

Lavoisier was also the first to realize that all substances can exist in three states—gas, liquid, and solid. He played a significant part in the development of the metric system and in revolutionizing the nomenclature of chemical substances, both of which are still in use today in much the same form. In this new system of nomenclature, the name of a substance indicates the elements of which it is made.

Despite his brilliance and the enormous contributions he made to the founding of modern chemistry, Lavoisier was far from perfect. The best analysis of Lavoisier's work on animal respiration and metabolism. Poirier, Pierre-Jean. Lavoisier, Chemist, Biologist, Economist. Translated by Rebecca Balinski. Philadelphia, Translation of Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier, —Paris, The best modern biography of Lavoisier in that it deals with the full scope of his scientific, technical, and public activities.

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