Antoine Lavoisier a French chemist, is referred to as the ‘Father of Modern Chemistry’. He was born to wealth and educated as a lawyer in France, began his scientific study at age twenty-one.
Antoine went back to basics of chemistry and invented the modern way of defining chemical elements.
He also wrote a ‘Great Treatise’ on Chemistry and even helped to introduce the metric system.
Lavoisier studied the composition of air and showed that its was a chemical reaction involving a gas he called oxygen.
As well as showing the importance of oxygen for combustion, he discovered its importance in respiration.
In 1783 he began heat measuring experiments using a calorimeter and showed that the heat produced by respiration was equal to the heat produced when the same amount of oxygen was used to burn charcoal.
Lavoisier was the first to discover that water is made up of oxygen and hydrogen.
Antoine Lavoisier 1743 – 1794
