Character Catalog

A founding work of modern chemistry, presenting a new nomenclature, the list of known elements, and the law of conservation of mass. It is considered the first chemistry textbook in the modern sense.

Written with Guyton de Morveau, Berthollet, and Fourcroy, this text establishes a rational system of chemical names. Many terms coined at the time (oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen) are still in use today.

A decisive memoir in which Lavoisier demonstrates that combustion is a combination with oxygen, overturning the phlogiston theory that had dominated chemistry for a century.

Pioneering work showing that animal respiration is a form of slow combustion, consuming oxygen and producing carbon dioxide and heat.

An economic and statistical study on French agriculture, reflecting Lavoisier's interest in agronomy and economic reform.

A demonstration that water is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen and not an element, definitively refuting the Aristotelian theory of the four elements.

We may lay it down as an incontestable axiom that, in all the operations of art and nature, nothing is created; an equal quantity of matter exists both before and after the experiment; the quality and quantity of the elements remain precisely the same, and nothing takes place beyond changes and modifications.

The calcination and combustion of metals are due solely to pure air, and the increase in weight acquired by metallic calxes is exactly equal to the quantity of air absorbed.

It is time to bring chemistry back to a more rigorous way of reasoning, to strip away from the facts with which this science enriches itself daily what reasoning and prejudice add to them.

Languages are not merely intended to express ideas and images by means of signs: they are moreover genuine analytical methods by which we proceed from the known to the unknown.

Established in the Royal Arsenal in 1775, this was Lavoisier's main laboratory where he conducted his most celebrated experiments on combustion and the composition of water.

Institution where Lavoisier was elected in 1768 and presented most of his papers. He played a central role there until its dissolution in 1793.

Headquarters of the Ferme générale where Lavoisier carried out his duties as a tax collector, an activity that funded his research but ultimately led to his downfall.

Rural property where Lavoisier conducted scientific agronomy experiments, testing new farming and livestock-rearing methods.

The site where Lavoisier was guillotined on 8 May 1794, alongside 27 other former tax farmers condemned by the Revolutionary Tribunal.

Central instrument of Lavoisier's laboratory, of remarkable accuracy. It was through his meticulous weighings that he established the law of conservation of mass.

Large apparatus designed by Lavoisier to precisely measure the volumes of gas produced or consumed during chemical reactions.

Instrument invented with Laplace to measure the heat released by chemical reactions and the respiration of living beings.

Vessel with a curved neck used for heating and distilling substances, ubiquitous in his laboratory at the Arsenal.

Glass bell inverted over a mercury trough, allowing gases to be collected and measured without contamination from outside air.

Registers meticulously kept by Lavoisier and his wife, recording each experiment with exact measurements and operating conditions.