Conservation of mass

He was a geologist, a botanist, a biologist, and a physicist.

He helped define the metric system, created an international language of chemistry, named hydrogen and oxygen, predicted the existence of silicon, outlined what elements were, figured out how animals extracted energy from food, determined that an element could take different forms upon discovering that both ash and diamond contained pure carbon, published the very first chemistry textbook ever, And there's a reason why the Law of Conservation of Mass used to be called Lavoisier's Law.

Born into a wealthy family, Lavoisier inherited a massive amount of money when his mom died when he was five years old.

And though he did get licensed to practice law, as his father expected him to follow in his lawyerly footsteps, young Antoine chose science instead.

Certainly one of my very favorite numbers, but we'll get to that later.

Thank you for watching this episode of Crash Course Chemistry.

If you were paying attention, you now know the story of how we went from alchemists who thought that the element of fire hid inside of substances just clamoring to get out, to chemists who understood the law of conservation of mass as proposed by a decapitated aristocrat, greater understanding of how chemical compounds work thanks to a pharmacist and a schoolteacher, and eventually a complete understanding of what atoms and molecules are thanks to a neglected Italian house self.

at Nobleman.