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Science1789

Lavoisier and the Chemical Revolution

Also called: Traité élémentaire de chimie, Conservation of mass, Chemical Revolution

In 1789 Lavoisier published his Elementary Treatise of Chemistry, establishing the conservation of mass and combustion by oxygen and ordering the concept of the elements — the founding of modern chemistry.

Antoine Lavoisier and his wife — painting by Jacques-Louis David, 1788, with his laboratory instruments
Antoine Lavoisier and his wife — painting by Jacques-Louis David, 1788, with his laboratory instruments

Jacques-Louis David · Public domain · Source

Weighing substances before and after reactions with precise balances, Lavoisier showed that the total mass of matter is unchanged in a chemical reaction — the law of conservation of mass. He discarded the old theory that burning releases “phlogiston”, explaining combustion as combination with the oxygen in the air, and coined the names oxygen and hydrogen and a new chemical nomenclature. In his Elementary Treatise of Chemistry of 1789 he listed 33 elements.

Yet because he had been a tax farmer, collecting taxes under the monarchy, he was guillotined during the Revolution in 1794.

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People

  • Antoine Lavoisier1743 – 1794

    author · French chemist who established the conservation of mass and explained the role of oxygen, founding modern chemistry, but was executed during the Revolution

Before and after

Earlier
1789 French Revolution
Later
1789 Storming of the Bastille

Themes that include this event

  • Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment and the English Revolutions1543 – 1796

    The Scientific Revolution from Copernicus to Newton, parliamentary government in England won through the Puritan and Glorious Revolutions, and the Enlightenment that sought to remake society by reason — the groundwork of the civic revolutions and the Industrial Revolution