In the decades after French scientist Antoine Lavoisier developed the first modern definition of chemical elements, it was believed that earths could be reduced to their elements, meaning that the discovery of a new earth was equivalent to the discovery of the element within, which in this case would have been yttrium.

Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier ( also Antoine Lavoisier after the French Revolution ; 26 August 17438 May 1794 ; ), the " father of modern chemistry ," was a French nobleman prominent in the histories of chemistry and biology.

The work of Lavoisier was translated in Japan in the 1840s, through the process of Rangaku.

Working with Pierre-Simon Laplace, Lavoisier conducted experiments that showed that respiration was essentially a slow combustion of organic material using inhaled oxygen.

Lavoisier received a law degree and was admitted to the bar, but never practiced as a lawyer.

Lavoisier was a powerful figure in the deeply unpopular Ferme Générale, 28 feudal tax collectors who were known to profit immensely by exploiting their position.

The first of these scientific concepts of acids and bases was provided by the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, circa 1776.

The first scientific concept of acids and bases was provided by Lavoisier circa 1776.

The Law of Conservation of Mass resulted in the reformulation of chemistry based on this law and the oxygen theory of combustion, which was largely based on the work of Lavoisier.

Chemistry as we know it today, was invented by Antoine Lavoisier with his law of Conservation of mass in 1783.

The idea that heat was a conservative quantity was invented by Lavoisier, and is called the ' caloric theory '; by the middle of the nineteenth century it was recognized as mistaken.

In 1772, Antoine Lavoisier used a lens to concentrate the rays of the sun on a diamond in an atmosphere of oxygen, and showed that the only product of the combustion was carbon dioxide, proving that diamond is composed of carbon.

David's portrait of Lavoisier, who was a chemist and physicist as well as an active member of the Jacobin party, was banned by the authorities for such reasons.

Also of interest – Lavoisier was a tax collector, as well as a famous chemist.

After he discovered that France was not self-sufficient in gunpowder, a Gunpowder Administration was established ; to head it, the lawyer Antoine Lavoisier was appointed.

* 1794 – Branded a traitor during the Reign of Terror by revolutionists, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who was also a tax collector with the Ferme Générale, is tried, convicted, and guillotined all on the same day in Paris.

Nitrogen gas was inert enough that Antoine Lavoisier referred to it as " mephitic air " or azote, from the Greek word ( azotos ) meaning " lifeless ".

" He compared Bukharin's situation to that of the great chemist Antoine Lavoisier who was guillotined during the French Revolution: " We in France, the most ardent revolutionaries ... still profoundly grieve and regret what we did ....

The name oxygen was coined in 1777 by Antoine Lavoisier, whose experiments with oxygen helped to discredit the then-popular phlogiston theory of combustion and corrosion.

In 1780, for example, Laplace and Lavoisier stated: “ In general, one can change the first hypothesis into the second by changing the words ‘ free heat, combined heat, and heat released ’ into ‘ vis viva, loss of vis viva, and increase of vis viva .’” In this manner, the total mass of caloric in a body, called absolute heat, was regarded as a mixture of two components ; the free or perceptible caloric could affect a thermometer, whereas the other component, the latent caloric, could not.

Lavoisier discovered that Henry Cavendish's " inflammable air ," which Lavoisier had termed hydrogen ( Greek for " water-former "), combined with oxygen to produce a dew which, as Joseph Priestley had reported, appeared to be water.

Constant pressure calorimeter, engraving made by madame Lavoisier for thermochemistry experiments

By the time of Antoine Lavoisier, for example, a list of elements would no longer refer to classical elements.

Although from a bourgeois family, after his degree in law Lavoisier became wealthy from a company set up to collect taxes for the Crown ; this allowed him to pursue experimental natural science as a hobby.

Joseph Priestley, for example, in referring to the reaction of steam on iron, whilst fully acknowledging that the iron gains weight as it binds with oxygen to form a calx, iron oxide, iron also loses “ the basis of inflammable air ( hydrogen ), and this is the substance or principle, to which we give the name phlogiston .” Following Lavoisier ’ s description of oxygen as the oxidizing principle ( hence the name oxygen: oxus

* Antoine Lavoisier ( 1743 – 1794 ) French ; a founder of modern chemistry ; executed in the French Revolution for his politics

* 1789: Antoine Lavoisier discovers the law of conservation of mass, the basis for chemistry, and begins modern chemistry

* 1783 – Antoine Lavoisier discovers oxygen and develops an explanation for combustion ; in his paper " Réflexions sur le phlogistique ", he deprecates the phlogiston theory and proposes a caloric theory

du Pont, a former student of Lavoisier, established the Eleutherian gunpowder mills, which produced material for the American Revolutionary War.

Gas chemistry was of increasing importance in the latter half of the 18th century and became crucial for Frenchman Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier ’ s reform of chemistry, generally known as the chemical revolution.

His indefatigable exertions as a traveller, his skill and good fortune as a collector, his brilliance as a teacher and expositor, and his keenness as a controversialist no doubt aid largely in accounting for Spallanzani's exceptional fame among his contemporaries ; his letters account for his close relationships with many famed scholars and philosophers, like Buffon, Lavoisier, and Voltaire.

Du Pont worked for Antoine Lavoisier at the Arsenal in Paris.

* 1777-Antoine Lavoisier discovers oxygen and develops an explanation for combustion.

In 1781 the States of Languedoc founded a chair of chemistry for him at the school of medicine in Montpellier, where he taught the theories of Antoine Lavoisier.

* 1789 – Antoine Lavoisier: law of conservation of mass, basis for chemistry, and the beginning of modern chemistry

While Mendeleev built upon earlier discoveries by such scientists as Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier and Stanislao Cannizzaro, the Russian scientist is generally given sole credit for development of the actual periodic table itself.

Joseph Priestley, member of the Lunar Society and discoverer of oxygen would flee Britain after his laboratory in Birmingham was smashed and his house burned down in the Birmingham riots of 1791, by a mob objecting to his outspoken support for the French Revolution ; and his colleague Lavoisier in France would be executed at the guillotine.

* 1789: Lavoisier publishes Treatise of Elementary Chemistry, introducing the concept of a chemical element and clarifying the Law of conservation of mass for chemical reactions.

This work, translated by Marie-Anne Pierette Paulze, was published in French with critical notes by Lavoisier and some of his associates ; Kirwan attempted to refute their arguments, but they proved too strong for him, and he acknowledged himself a convert in 1791.

Wilfred Sweeny ( 1926-2011 ), the DuPont scientist responsible for discoveries leading to Nomex, earned a DuPont Lavoisier Medal partly for this work in 2002.

Combustion generated by focusing sunlight over flammable materials using lenses, an experiment conducted by Lavoisier in the 1770s

The contributions of Lavoisier led to what is now called modern chemistry — the chemistry that is studied in educational institutions all over the world.

This hypothesis would later be confirmed by Lavoisier, over a century later in 1789.

While Hales ’ work on the chemistry of air appears primitive by contemporary standards, its importance was acknowledged by Lavoisier, and Hales ’ invention of the pneumatic trough to collect gases over water was a major technical advance.