Stephen Tannerbaum, age 10, of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, for his question:
Who was Lavoisier?
Once in a great while, somebody special solves a key problem that makes life easier for everybody. For example, way back before the dawn of history some forgotten person invented the wheel. In the 1600s, Isaac Newton solved the laws of gravity, plus several other key science problems. And in the 1700s, several more key science problems were solved by Lavoisier.
Antoine Laurent Lavoisier was born in France in 1743 and lived 51 years. Scientists use only his last name, which is pronounced Lah vwa ZYAY, because he rates among the great brains of history. He solved the mystery of fire, helped to work out our system of chemical formulas and wrote the very first textbook on chemistry. Like Newton and other great thinkers, Lavoisier was interested in many different things especially in the everyday problems of everyday people.
As a young man, Lavoisier studied math and astronomy, plants and the weather and his favorite subject, which was chemistry. At that time, scientists thought that fire was a mysterious process which they called phlogiston. Lavoisier questioned this idea and later in life he did his own research on the nature of fire.
He was the first to prove the truth of what really happens when things burn. He showed that a fire does not destroy anything, as it seems to do. It merely changes sub¬stances into other substances. For example, the flames of a campfire do not destroy the material in the logs. They merely change the solid wood into invisible gases plus a small pile of ashes.
Lavoisier also showed that a very slow burning process goes on in our bodies. It changes fuel substances and gives off warmth. He proved that this slow combustion and all other burning processes use up oxygen gas to keep going. he weighed many careful experiments to sho1r that nothing is lost. Then he worked out a shorthand system of chemical symbols to explain these wonders to the rest of the world.
Meantime this busy man found time to teach chemistry students, to invent a simplified system of tax collecting and to take part in politics. He also ran a model farm and found ways to make this work easier and better for everybody. His work in agriculture was appreciated by the farmers and the whole world of science appreciated his original work in chemistry. But the struggling peasants of France detested his system of taxes.
Lavoisier lived when the people of France were fed up with paying taxes to keep their extravagant kings in lavish luxury. When the French Revolution broke out, the king and countless aristocrats were beheaded. Later the people were swayed by savage rebels who beheaded many who had done no harm. On May 17, 1794, Lavoisier and 27 others were given a one sided trial that lasted less than a day. That afternoon, this great man was executed.