Antoine Laurent Lavoisier

French chemist who transformed alchemy into modern chemistry through rigorous quantification

Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794) demolished phlogiston theory through precise mass measurements, establishing the law of conservation of mass. His Traité Élémentaire de Chimie (1789) systematized chemical nomenclature, replacing mystical terms like aqua fortis with oxygen and hydrogen.

As tax collector, Lavoisier funded France's first hydrological survey while developing agricultural reforms. His calorimeter experiments proved respiration as slow combustion, bridging biology and chemistry. Guillotined during the Reign of Terror, his final experiment measured how long consciousness persists after decapitation.

Lavoisier's 33-element table became the Periodic Table foundation. The Chemical Revolution he spearheaded created modern laboratory protocols, influencing fields from metallurgy to medicine.