Lavoisier's portrait by Mademoiselle Brossard-Beaulieu
(private collection)
- Summary
- Lavoisier considered that it was in founding the new chemistry that he gave his measure and history has largely ratified his self-estimate, according him the leading role that Isaac Newton played in physics, Charles Darwin in evolutionary biology, Albert Einstein in relativity, and Niels Bohr in quantum mechanics.
- All were prime movers in transformations of a scope that, as if anticipating political events, Lavoisier called a revolution in his science. This revolution includes the replacement of phlogiston by oxygen in the theory of combustion, the adoption of the systematic nomenclature in use ever since, the dependence on the principle of conservation of matter, the rigorously quantitative mode of analysis. Due weight must be given to the importance of his study of respiration both for physiology and for the early history of organic chemistry.
- But science is always a collective enterprise, and the parts of others, of predecessors, associates, and opponents, must be explained; here we have the whole cast, French, British, and European, and not merely the protagonist, the ultimately tragic protagonist. Putting matters in perspective does not entail any belittling of Lavoisier's stature nor any subordination of the content of his science to the social and political context. Still, the overall story of the chemical revolution is familiar, and it is mainly in the account of Lavoisier's fu rther concerns that new ground can be explored. Beyond the mere facts of his having been a partner in the Tax Farm, an administrator of the Gunpowder Service, and a model farmer, little has been known of how Lavoisier actually spent his days. As a rule, chemistry occupied only the hours before breakfast and in the evenings. For the rest, his life was that of a financier, economist, and liberal administrator, a "grand commis d'état."(See Jean-Pierre Poirier. Lavoisier Chemist, Biologist, Economist, Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 1996).
- Jean-Pierre Poirier
Comité Lavoisier
Académie des Sciences de ParisCONTENTS I LAVOISIER (1743-1794) 
Life and works
of Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier
Summary
Chapter 1: LAVOISIER, A TASTE FOR SCIENCEChapter 3: LAVOISIER, PIONEER IN PUBLIC HEALTH
Chapter 4: LAVOISIER, PHYSIOLOGIST
Chapter 5 : LAVOISIER, BIOLOGIST
Chapter 6: LAVOISIER, ECONOMIST
Chapter 7: LAVOISIER, SENIOR CIVIL SERVANT
Chapter 8: LAVOISIER, ARTS AND TRADES
Chapter 9 : "LA REPUBLIQUE N'A PAS BESOIN DE SAVANTS"
Bibliography
Lavoisier
papers
Lavoisier
Image
Gallery
Lavoisier
Books ReviewsBACK II WEBSITES ON LAVOISIER
- Lavoisier's manuscripts at
the Archives de l'Académie des Sciences
http://www.academie-sciences.fr
- PANOPTICON LAVOISIER aims at
creating a virtual museum of the collections of the French chemist
Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794) scattered throughout the
world. A detailed chronology of Lavoisier's life and works, the
catalogue of Lavoisier's manuscripts (ca. 6000 items), laboratory
apparatus (ca. 500 items), library (ca. 3000 items) and minerals
(ca. 4000 items), the digital edition of Lavoisier's collected
works, the bibliography on and of the French chemist (ca. 2000
bibliographic records) as well as his complete iconography are
integrated in one relational database, Pinakes , and made
available to remote users.
http://193.206.220.40/lavoisier
- The Conservatoire National
des Arts et Métiers (CNAM) exhibits the splendid
collection of Lavoisier's laboratory instruments.
http://www.cnam.fr/
- Paris News: 8 May 1794. An
exclusive interview, granted by Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze
(Madame Lavoisier) several months before her husband's death,
to our Woodrow Wilson Institute News (WWIN) correspondent
http://www.woodrow.org/teachers/ci/1992/Lavoisier.html
- A French chemist and the
father of modern chemistr
http://www.dupont.com/corp/r-and-d/lavoisier/antoine.htm
- Cavendsish:
http://www.treasure-troves.com/bios/Cavendish.htm
- UCSD Websites University of
California and San Diego
http://www.ucsd.edu/alpha/index.html
- The Chemical Heritage
Foundation (CHF) takes appropriate steps to make known
the achievements of chemical and molecular scientists and
engineers and of related sciences, technologies, and
industries.
http://www.chemheritage.org/
BACKIII OUR GOALS - To make known
the work of Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier (1743-1794), the founder
of modern chemistry.
- To circulate
information regarding contemporary research on the life and work
of Lavoisier.
- To assemble a
complete bibliography on Lavoisier.
- To find and
make known Lavoisier's papers.
- To create a
Lavoisier Forum.
- To provide
support for the Comité Lavoisier of the Académie des
Sciences, which is responsible for editing Lavoisier's
correspondence, 23, Quai Conti, 7-75006 Paris, FRANCE - Tel. (33)
1 44 41 43 85; mail to <archives@academie-sciences.fr>.
IV INFORMATIONS 
THE FIRST BIOGRAPHY
OF MADAME LAVOISIER
- Last October, Jean-Pierre Poirier has published the first biography of Madame Lavoisier (1758-1836). Born Marie Anne Paulze, the daughter of a farmer general, she married Lavoisier when she was 13 years old. She never had any child but, during 22 years, was secretary and assistant to her husband. Talented for public relations, she helped him in the triumph all over Europe of the chemical revolution. Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours, her lover, gave here a taste for political and economic ideas. Imprisoned during the terror, she escaped guillotine.
- In 1805, she married count Rumford but could not achieve with him the same sort of happy couple that she previously had with Lavoisier.
- The aim of this book is to give an accurate evaluation of Madame Lavoisier's talents as chemist and to define her real contribution to the chemical revolution.
- Jean-Pierre Poirier, Science et l'Amour. Madame Lavoisier, Paris, Éditions Pygmalion, 2004. 31 euros..
-
LECOQ
MUSEUM
The Lecoq Museum in Clermont-Ferrand exhibits the Lavoisier collection of mineralogy with 3500 items including rocks, fossils, botanical and animal samples in 932 glass bottles. This collection is described in professeur Deluzarche's article in l'Actualité chimique, janvier-février 1987, p 7 à 11 For more informatiuon, contact Pierre Pénicaud, Directeur du Musée Lecoq: E-laill zecoq@nat.fr
- Mineral collection
- The Muséum d'histoire naturelle Henri-Lecoq of Clermont Ferrand (Puy-de-Dôme, France) preserves Lavoisier's collection of minerals. It was donated to the city in 1837 by L