CHAPTER 18 Scientific work in the 60s The years 1963-1967 were fruitful for me scientifically. One of the reasons was the decrease in the intensity of work on special topics, which began to occupy my thoughts much less. At home, that is, at the site, in the cottage, where I spend most of my time

Chapter 4 How a scientific school was born By the fall of 1926, Fermi was finally firmly established in Rome. He parted with his Tyrolean jacket and short trousers and put on a somewhat tight suit, the same shade of brown as his own tanned skin.

SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY IN ROME Fermi's vigorous theoretical activity, from the time of the publication of his work on statistics (1926) until the end of 1933, when he began working in the field of nuclear physics, proceeded in three main directions. Firstly, Fermi spent several years mastering

French chemist, one of the founders of modern chemistry.

Not knowing about ideas M.V. Lomonosov, rediscovered the law of conservation of mass. I discovered that the air has a complex composition; determined the composition of water; explained the essence of combustion and oxidation, developed the principles of chemical nomenclature.

"Exactly Lavoisier correctly connecting all the pieces of the puzzle together and created the conditions under which the development of chemical theory began to move in the right direction. First of all, Lavoisier declared that the theory based on phlogiston was completely incorrect; at all Not There is such a substance as phlogiston. The combustion process occurs as a result of the chemical interaction of combustible substances with oxygen. Secondly, water is not a simple substance at all, but is a combination of oxygen and hydrogen. Air is also not a simple substance; it is a combination of mainly two gases - hydrogen and nitrogen. All these statements seem quite obvious today. However, they did not seem at all obvious to Lavoisier’s predecessors and his contemporaries. Even when Lavoisier formulated his theory and presented its evidence, many leading chemists refused to accept his ideas. However, Lavoisier’s excellent textbook, “Elementary Textbook of Chemistry” (1789), so clearly outlined his hypotheses and so convincingly presented evidence in their favor that the younger generation of chemists quickly became convinced of them. Having proved that water and air are not chemical elements, Lavoisier included in his book a list of substances that he considered elementary. Although there were several errors in his book, the modern list of chemical elements is an expanded version of Lavoisier's table.

Lavoisier had already developed (in collaboration with Berthollet, Fourcroix and Guiton de Morveau) the first system of chemical nomenclature. In the Lavoisier system (which forms the basis of the modern system), the chemical substances included in it were systematized by their name. The adoption of the first uniform system of nomenclature allowed chemists around the world to better inform each other about the discoveries they made.

Lavoisier [...] clearly stated the principle of conservation of mass in chemical reactions: a chemical reaction can rearrange the elements present in the original substances, but no matter what the degree of destruction, the final products weigh the same as the original components. Lavoisier's insistence on weighing the chemicals involved in a reaction helped establish chemistry as an exact science and paved the way for many other advances that would further advance chemical science.

Lavoisier made some contributions to the development of geology, and in the field of physiology his contribution was significant. Through careful experimentation (working in collaboration with Laplace) he was able to prove that the physiological process of breathing is equivalent to slow combustion. In other words, human beings and animals obtain energy from the slow internal combustion of organic material; they breathe by getting oxygen from the air. This discovery alone, which obviously can be compared in importance with Harvey's discovery of the circulation of blood, allows Lavoisier to successfully take a place on our list. And yet, Lavoisier’s main merit is that he laid the foundations of chemical theory and thereby directed the development of chemical science on the right path. He is commonly called the “father of modern chemistry,” and he rightfully deserves this title.”

Michael Hart, 100 great people, M., “Veche”, 1998, p. 122-124.

“In his classic book “Elementary Course in Chemistry” (1789) Lavoisier repeatedly refers to the works of the French philosopher Condillac, who developed the ideas of the English empiricist materialist philosopher Locke and contributed to their spread in France. Condillac considered sensation to be the only source of thinking, and experience to be the basis of scientific work. In accordance with this, Lavoisier always went in his research from the unknown to the known and did not draw conclusions that were not supported by experience and observations.”

Biographies of great chemists / Ed. Karl Haininga, M., “The World”, 1981, p.73.

“During the First Republic, the famous chemist served as a commissioner of the financial chamber (public treasury) and, accused of conspiracy and malfeasance, was guillotined along with other 28 tax farmers by the revolutionary tribunal on March 8, 1794. Some hope remained that Lavoisier His learned European fame and many friends and admirers will save him, but terror has shackled everyone. In the early years of the first empire, among French science and literature, the supply of servility exceeded the demand for it. There is a legend that Lavoisier asked to postpone the execution and give him time to complete his planned research.

To the executioner, the famous French mathematician later said Lagrange(1736-1813), It only took one moment to cut off such a head, but a whole century was not enough to produce a similar one again. On the centenary of the French Revolution (1889) in Paris, it was decided to open a monument to Lavoisier, since it was in 1789 that he proposed the “Table of Simple Bodies,” essentially the first classification of elements. In the same year, together with K.L. Berthollet (1748-1822) and other scientists founded the journal Annales de Chimie.

In 1789, his book “Treatise on Chemistry” appeared, which signified an equally profound revolution in scientific thought, the birth of classical chemistry.

The monument to Lavoisier was opened 10 years later, in 1899.”

Pompeev Yu.A., Essays on the history of European scientific thought, St. Petersburg, “Abris”, 2003, p. 225.

L.'s scientific fame after death has been repeatedly disputed. Mainly Thomson () and Voihard () tried to belittle L.'s merits and cast a shadow over his entire scientific activity. They accused him of having appropriated discoveries made by others, of deliberately withholding the names of his predecessors, etc. The reasons for these attacks, however, are rooted mainly in national antagonism. Not to mention the fact that these attacks are far from justified in practice; L.'s scientific glory lies not in establishing new facts, but mainly in introducing a new system into science, which completely reformed it. This work was produced by L. with extraordinary energy and logical persuasiveness, thanks to which his system triumphed over the previous one in a relatively very short time. Currently, complaints about L appear to be dying down. His tirelessly active and noble, humane personality emerges as if alive in a complete biography published by Grimaud. On the centenary of his death (), an international subscription to the monument to L. was undertaken in Paris.

Scientific works of L. and their meaning. One of L.'s earliest and most important works was devoted to solving the question of whether water can be turned into land. This question occupied many researchers at that time and remained unresolved when L. Lavoisier began to address it, dedicating two memoirs to it, bearing the general title: “Sur la nature de l”eau et sur les exp ériences par les quelles on a prétendu prouver la possibilité de son changement en terre" (). In this study, L. for the first time showed how important weight determinations can be in elucidating chemical problems. Having purified rainwater by eightfold distillation, he placed it in a glass vessel of a special device, which was then hermetically sealed and weighed. The weight of a vessel without water was determined earlier. By heating water in this vessel for 100 days, L. found that “earth” actually appeared in the water. But after weighing the vessel without water after the experiment, he found that its weight decreased, and it turned out that the weight of the formed earth was equal to the decrease in the weight of the vessel. From here he concluded that this “earth” is the product of the action of water on the glass of the vessel. With this experiment, L. finally and forever resolved the issue of the transformation of water into earth, which had long remained controversial. - After this, L. turns to the study of gases. From the physical side, gases had already been somewhat studied by Boyle and Marriott, but from the chemical side they represented at that time a very dark and almost unexplored area. Starting to study gases, L. felt that the study of this area should revolutionize physics and chemistry and expressed this idea in his laboratory journal in the city. First of all, he tests the fact that the weight of metals when they are converted into “lime” ( so-called at that time all metal oxides, for example red oxide, iron scale, etc.) increase, a fact established in the city of Rey and in the city of Mayov, and proves that the increase in this case is due to part of the air , and not about the addition of fire, as Boyle thought, whose opinion was generally accepted at that time. L. converted tin into “lime” (oxide) in a hermetically sealed vessel, heating the metal using a large burning glass. The total weight of the vessel with tin, after converting the tin into “lime,” remained unchanged; this could not have happened if something had actually been added to the tin from the outside. L. also found that the amount of air taken after the experiment decreases by 1/5 and that the remaining air does not support combustion and respiration. It also showed an increase in weight upon combustion of sulfur and phosphorus. The facts he established are described in "Opuscules physiques et chimiques" () and in "M émoire sur la calcination de l"étam dans les vaisseaux fermés et sur la cause de l"augmentation du poids qu"acquiert ce métal pendant cette opé ration" ( The discovery of oxygen, made in Priestley and Scheele, gave L. the impetus for a complete explanation of the issue. In L. he presented a memoir to the Academy "Sut la nature du principe qui se combine avec les m étaux pendant leur calcination et qui en augmente le poids", in which he defines the role of oxygen in the formation of metallic "lime" and recognizes oxygen as one of the constituent parts of air. Subsequently, in a number of memoirs, L. develops his new theory of oxidation and combustion, diametrically opposed in its foundations to the theory of "phlogiston" ", which was then generally accepted. According to the theory of phlogiston, introduced into science by Becher (late 17th century) and developed by Stahl (beginning of the 18th century), all bodies capable of burning and oxidizing contain a special combustible principle, "phlogiston", which During the combustion process, it is released from the body, leaving ash, “lime.” Constantly resorting to precise weighing in his research, L. showed that during the combustion process the substance is not released from the burning body, but is added to it. Having established his new view on the processes of combustion and oxidation, L. at the same time correctly understood the composition of air. Through analysis and synthesis, he showed that air is a mixture of two gases: one of them is a gas that primarily supports combustion, “healthy (salubre) air, clean air, vital air, oxygen,” as L. himself consistently called it, the other gas - unhealthy air (moffette) or nitrogen. Priestley and other proponents of the phlogiston theory looked at the changes in air caused by combustion and oxidation in a completely different way. They considered both oxygen and nitrogen to be different modifications of ordinary air, differing from it in the amounts of phlogiston contained in them: oxygen, as energetically supporting combustion, was considered “air devoid of phlogiston”, “dephlogisticated air”, and nitrogen - “phlogisticated air”, i.e. .e. saturated with phlogiston and therefore unable to take it away from other bodies, and therefore maintain combustion. L. analyzed and synthesized air, heating it with a certain volume of air and then decomposing the resulting red mercury oxide. A description of this classic experiment by L., which has since passed into all chemistry manuals, is placed in his “Trait é été meutaire de chimie” (I, chap. 3). Along with the study of the composition of air, L. explores the role of oxygen in the formation of acids ("Consid érations générales sur la nature des acides et sur les principes dont ils sont composé s",), establishes the composition of carbonic acid, numerous cases of isolation of which were already studied by Black ( "Sur la formation de l"acide nommé l"air fixe", explains the changes in air caused by the combustion of a candle ("M ém. sur la combustion des chandelles dans l"air atmosphérique et dans l"air é minement respirable") and breathing of animals (“Exp ériences sur la respiration des animaux et sur les changesments qui arrivevt à l” air en passant par leurs poumons.”) With Mr. L. he studied the combustion of hydrogen, or, as it was called then, “combustible air.” , discovered in the city of Cavendish. For a long time L. could not come to a definite result, since he expected to find some kind of acid as a product of the combustion of hydrogen. At the same time as L., many other chemists, Cavendish, Priestley, Monge, were working on the same issue , Warllire, etc. Only in the city of L. and Laplace they found what they were looking for: the product of hydrogen combustion turned out to be pure water. At the same time, the same thing was found by Cavendish and Watt. But since only L. at that time correctly understood the combustion process, he was the only one of all who became aware of this phenomenon who correctly interpreted it and understood the composition of water. In the city of L., together with Meunier, they obtained, by synthesis from hydrogen and oxygen, 45 g. water. As in other cases, L. was not content with synthesis alone. Together with Meunier, he produces in 1783-84. decomposition of water using iron. They passed water vapor through a hot gun barrel and collected the resulting gas: it was hydrogen; the iron barrel was covered inside with a layer of iron oxide, representing a compound of iron with oxygen. Having determined the composition of water, L. then correctly interpreted the reduction of metal oxides with hydrogen and the release of hydrogen when acids act on metals. The doctrine of oxygen as the main combustion agent was met with very hostility. Macker, a French chemist, laughs at the new theory. In Berlin, where the memory of the phlogistician Stahl was especially revered, L. was even burned in effigie, as a heretic of science. L. did not waste time on polemics with the view, the inconsistency of which he felt, but, persistently and patiently studying the facts, he gradually established, step by step, the foundations of his scientific theory. Only after carefully studying the facts and fully clarifying his point of view, L. openly criticizes the doctrine of phlogiston and shows its instability (“Ré flexions sur le phlogistique,”). The explanation of the composition of water was a decisive blow to the phlogiston theory; its supporters began to go over to the side of the teachings of L. When in the city of L. he published “Trail é élé mentaire de chimie,” which was immediately translated into many foreign languages, many former opponents of his system changed the theories of phlogiston; so eg The Englishman Kirwan, who wrote the book “An Essay on Phlogiston,” filled with cruel attacks on L.’s teachings, abandoned the theory of phlogiston and recognized L.’s views: “I lay down my weapon and leave phlogiston,” he wrote to Bertholla. During his lifetime, L. witnessed the complete triumph of his teaching. Having explained the composition of air and water, L. fully raised and clarified many other questions. Having found that when organic compounds are burned, water and carbon dioxide are formed, L. gave instructions regarding the composition of organic substances, recognizing their constituent parts as carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. At the same time, L. gave the first examples of organic analysis, burning alcohol, oil and wax in a certain volume of oxygen and determining the volume of carbon dioxide formed over mercury ("Sur la combinaison du principe oxygine avee l"esprit de vin, l"huile et diff é rents corps combustibles", ). Later, he burned sugar by heating it with red mercury oxide, absorbed the resulting carbonic acid with caustic potassium and weighed it: for combustion he also used manganese peroxide and bertholite salt. Thus, L. was familiar not only with the principle, but also with the practical implementation of organic analysis. L. also studied fermentation processes and established the fact of the breakdown of grape sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. He even tried to express this transformation with a quantitative equation and in connection with it clearly formulated the truth about the invariability of the weight of matter (“Trait é”, I. chap. XIII). Based on the properties of oxygen compounds of various simple bodies(see below), L. was the first to give a classification of bodies known at that time in chemical practice. The basis of his classification were, together with the concept of simple bodies, the concepts of oxide, acid and salt. An oxide is a compound of a metal with oxygen, for example. oxide of iron, mercury, copper and many others. etc.; acid is a combination of a non-metallic body, such as coal, sulfur, phosphorus, with oxygen; L. considered organic acids acetic, oxalic, tartaric, etc. as compounds with oxygen of various “radicals” (see). A salt is formed by combining an acid with a base. This classification, as further research soon showed, was narrow and therefore incorrect: some acids, such as. hydrocyanic acid, hydrogen sulfide, and their corresponding salts did not fit these definitions; L. considered hydrochloric acid a compound of oxygen with an as yet unknown radical, and considered chlorine as a compound of oxygen with hydrochloric acid. Nevertheless, this was the first classification, which made it possible to survey with great simplicity a whole series of bodies known at that time in chemistry. She gave L. the opportunity to predict the complex composition of such bodies as lime, barite, caustic alkalis, boric acid, etc., which before him were considered elementary bodies. Along with the classification, L. worked a lot on simplifying the chemical nomenclature, the issue of which was raised by Guiton de Morveau in the city; This nomenclature was based on the classification given by L. The new nomenclature brought greater simplicity and clarity to the chemical language, clearing it of complex and confusing terms that were bequeathed by alchemy and were completely arbitrary, and often devoid of any meaning.

The phenomena of heat, closely related to the combustion process, were also the subject of study by L. Together with Laplace, the future creator of Celestial Mechanics, L. gives rise to calorimetry (see); they arrange an ice calorimeter. Using it, they measure the heat capacities of many bodies and the heat released during various chemical transformations, for example. during the combustion of coal, phosphorus, hydrogen, during the explosion of a mixture of saltpeter, sulfur and coal. With these works they laid the foundation for a new field of research - thermochemistry and established its basic principle, formulated by them in the following form: “Any thermal changes that any material system experiences, changing its state, occur in the reverse order, when the system returns to its original condition." For example, to decompose carbonic acid into coal and oxygen, it is necessary to spend the same amount of heat as it is released when coal is burned into carbon dioxide. The calorimetric and thermochemical studies of L. and Laplace are described in the memoir "Sur la chaleur" (). In 1781-82 they provide a well-known method for determining the expansion of solids. They then use the methods they developed to study animal warmth. Carrying out research on the composition of the air, L. established the changes that the air undergoes during the breathing process of animals. The already mentioned study “Sur la chaleur”, made by L. together with Laplace, as well as research on animal respiration, carried out by L. together with Seguin in 1789-90, were of enormous importance in physiology. These studies showed that animal respiration is a slow combustion, due to which a constant supply of heat is always maintained in the body. The waste produced in the body by the combustion process is replenished by digestion. These studies try to establish the relationship between the amount of carbon dioxide released by the body and the state of rest or work in which the body is. L. correctly understood the meaning and connection of three important functions of the animal body: respiration, digestion and transpiration. Physiology leads from L. a new era - the experimental study of life processes. With his research on animal heat, L. presented as strong arguments against vitalism, which reigned at that time in the biological sciences, as with his research on the combustion of bodies and the composition of water against the doctrine of phlogiston. L. inflicted, in addition, the final defeat the doctrine of the elements, dating back to ancient times. The view of fire, air, water and earth as elements survived until L. It is worth expanding, for example, the Beaum é manual, "Chimie expérim. et raisonné e," (), where the author calls fire, air, water and earth - primary principles that are part of all known bodies. L. highlighted fire, that is, its source is heat from the class of weighty bodies and classified it, along with light, magnetism, etc., into the category of weightless liquids (fluida). This division brought greater clarity both to general views and to calculations of chemical transformations. Compound air And water was explained to L.; and that earth cannot be considered an element, much evidence has already been accumulated for this. At the same time, the new concept of elementary bodies, established by Boyle (), was reinforced by L. and finally introduced into science. The concept of elementary bodies could, of course, have been purely empirical at that time, since there was still no data for its broad philosophical concept. L. considered elementary bodies to be those that in his time remained undecomposed. The distinction between two classes of simple bodies, metals and metalloids, belongs to L. The question of the three states of bodies, closely related to the doctrine of the elements, was put forward by L. In this regard, L.’s views on the nature of various states and their connection with heat are already clearly outlined views of our time. He recognized the theoretical possibility of transforming, by decreasing temperature (and increasing pressure), all gaseous bodies into liquids and into solids (“Traité”, I, chap. 2). This idea of ​​L. was practically realized only in our time by the work of Pictet, Caliette and others on the liquefaction of gases. According to L., gases consist of a weighty “base” and weightless matter, heat, thanks to which they maintain their gaseous state. If the matter of heat is taken away from the gas, then significant matter remains in liquid or solid form, depending on the amount of heat removed. When oxygen combines with a combustible body, the heat latent in the oxygen gas is released and released in the form of heat and fire. L. was the first to attach great importance to the quantitative side of chemical transformations of substances and made scales a necessary accessory to a chemical laboratory. In all his research, he himself was guided by the principle that during various chemical transformations, matter does not disappear, is not created again, and that therefore the weights of the bodies participating in the chemical transformation, before and after the transformation, remain unchanged. This position was expressed by L. more than once, for example. in "Trait é" (I, chap. 13). Since the time of L., this truth has formed the basis of the scientific chemical system (“the law of the eternity of matter”) and, together with another truth obtained in our century by physics, namely the law of conservation of energy, forms the basis of modern philosophy of nature... Guided by the principle indicated L., researchers quickly came to conclusions of extraordinary importance, to the establishment of laws governing the weight relationships of substances connecting with each other; and these laws, in connection with the laws of volumetric relations for gases, then led to the establishment of the concepts of atom and particle, giving extraordinary simplicity and clarity to the modern chemical system.

An important advantage that distinguishes L.'s works is the precise scientific method in the spirit of which they were produced. As an example of precise, disciplined thought, L.'s works are as immortal as their results. The entire system of L. represents logical harmony and unity. L. introduced into chemistry that method of strict criticism and clear analysis of phenomena, which before him had already proven so fruitful in other areas of exact knowledge, in mechanics, physics, and astronomy. In this regard, L.’s work forms a link in the chain of works that aimed at discovering the laws governing natural phenomena, and L.’s name is on a par with few names, such as the names of 1888); “In memory of Lavoisier” - speeches by N. Zelinsky, I. Kablukov and I. Sechenov (); M. Engelhardt, "Lavoisier, his life and scientific activities"

LAVOISIER, Antoine Laurent

Antoine Laurent Lavoisier was born on August 26, 1743 in Paris in the family of a lawyer. He received his initial education at Mazarin College, and in 1764 he graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University of Paris. Already while studying at the University, Lavoisier, in addition to jurisprudence, was thoroughly engaged in the natural and exact sciences under the guidance of the best Parisian professors of that time. In 1764-1768. listened to a course of lectures by professor of the Paris Botanical Garden G. F. Ruel.

In 1765, Lavoisier presented a work on the topic given by the Paris Academy of Sciences - “On the best way to illuminate the streets of a big city.” When carrying out this work, Lavoisier's extraordinary persistence in pursuing the intended goal and accuracy in research were reflected - virtues that constitute the hallmark of all his works. For example, to increase the sensitivity of his vision to subtle changes in light intensity, Lavoisier spent six weeks in a dark room. This work by Lavoisier was awarded a gold medal by the academy.

In the period 1763-1767. Lavoisier makes a series of excursions with the famous geologist and mineralogist Guettard, helping the latter in drawing up a mineralogical map of France. Already these first works of Lavoisier opened the doors of the Paris Academy for him. On May 18, 1768, he was elected to the academy as an adjunct in chemistry, in 1778 he became a full member of the academy, and from 1785 he was its director.

In 1769, Lavoisier joined the Taxation Company, an organization of forty major financiers, in exchange for the immediate payment of a certain amount to the treasury, which received the right to collect state indirect taxes (on salt, tobacco, etc.). As a tax farmer, Lavoisier made a huge fortune, part of which he spent on scientific research; however, it was participation in the Tax Farm Company that became one of the reasons why Lavoisier was sentenced to death in 1794.

In 1775, Lavoisier became director of the Office of Gunpowder and Saltpeter. Thanks to Lavoisier's energy, the production of gunpowder in France more than doubled by 1788. Lavoisier organizes expeditions to find saltpeter deposits and conducts research on the purification and analysis of saltpeter; methods for purifying nitrate, developed by Lavoisier and A. Baume, have survived to this day. Lavoisier managed the gunpowder business until 1791. He lived in the gunpowder Arsenal; The wonderful chemical laboratory he created at his own expense was also located here, from which almost all the chemical works that immortalized his name came out. Lavoisier's laboratory was one of the main scientific centers in Paris at that time.

In the early 1770s. Lavoisier begins systematic experimental work to study combustion processes, as a result of which he comes to the conclusion that the phlogiston theory is untenable. Having received oxygen in 1774 (following K.V. Scheele and J. Priestley) and having managed to realize the significance of this discovery, Lavoisier creates the oxygen theory of combustion, which he sets out in 1777. In 1775-1777. Lavoisier proves the complex composition of air, consisting, in his opinion, of “clean air” (oxygen) and “suffocating air” (nitrogen). In 1781, together with the mathematician and chemist J.B. Meunier, he also proved the complex composition of water, establishing that it consists of oxygen and “combustible air” (hydrogen). In 1785, they synthesized water from hydrogen and oxygen.

The doctrine of oxygen as the main combustion agent was initially met with very hostility. The famous French chemist P. J. Maceur ridicules the new theory; The English scientist R. Kirwan spoke out against the theory. In Berlin, where the memory of the creator of the phlogiston theory, G. Stahl, was especially revered, Lavoisier’s works were even burned. Lavoisier, however, without initially wasting time on polemics with the view, the inconsistency of which he felt, step by step persistently and patiently established the foundations of his theory. Only after carefully studying the facts and finally clarifying his point of view, Lavoisier in 1783 openly criticized the doctrine of phlogiston and showed its instability. The establishment of the composition of water was a decisive blow to the theory of phlogiston; its supporters began to go over to the side of Lavoisier’s teachings.

Based on the properties of oxygen compounds, Lavoisier was the first to give a classification of “simple bodies” known at that time in chemical practice. Lavoisier's concept of elementary bodies was purely empirical: Lavoisier considered elementary bodies to be those bodies that could not be decomposed into simpler components.

The basis for his classification of chemical substances, together with the concept of simple bodies, were the concepts of “oxide”, “acid” and “salt”. According to Lavoisier, an oxide is a compound of a metal with oxygen; acid - a compound of a non-metallic body (for example, coal, sulfur, phosphorus) with oxygen. Organic acids – acetic, oxalic, tartaric, etc. – Lavoisier considered them to be compounds with oxygen of various “radicals”. A salt is formed by combining an acid with a base. This classification, as further research soon showed, was narrow and therefore incorrect: some acids, such as hydrocyanic acid, hydrogen sulfide, and their corresponding salts, did not fit these definitions; Lavoisier considered hydrochloric acid a compound of oxygen with an as yet unknown radical, and considered chlorine as a compound of oxygen with hydrochloric acid. Nevertheless, this was the first classification that made it possible to survey with great simplicity a whole series of bodies known at that time in chemistry. She gave Lavoisier the opportunity to predict the complex composition of such bodies as lime, barite, caustic alkalis, boric acid, etc., which before him were considered elementary bodies.

In connection with the abandonment of the phlogiston theory, the need arose to create a new chemical nomenclature, which was based on the classification given by Lavoisier. Lavoisier developed the basic principles of the new nomenclature in 1786-1787. together with C. L. Berthollet, L. B. Guiton de Morveau and A. F. Fourcroix. The new nomenclature brought greater simplicity and clarity to the chemical language, clearing it of the complex and confusing terms that were bequeathed by alchemy. Since 1790, Lavoisier also took part in the development of a rational system of measures and weights - the metric one.

The subject of Lavoisier's study was also thermal phenomena closely related to the combustion process. Together with Laplace, the future creator of Celestial Mechanics, Lavoisier gives rise to calorimetry. They create an ice calorimeter, with which they measure the heat capacities of many bodies and the heat released during various chemical transformations. Lavoisier and Laplace in 1780 established the basic principle of thermochemistry, which they formulated in the following form: “Any thermal changes that any material system experiences, changing its state, occur in the reverse order, when the system returns to its original state.”

In 1789, Lavoisier published the textbook “Elementary Course of Chemistry,” based entirely on the oxygen theory of combustion and new nomenclature, which became the first textbook of new chemistry. Since the French Revolution began in the same year, the revolution accomplished in chemistry by the works of Lavoisier is usually called the “chemical revolution”.

The creator of the chemical revolution, Lavoisier became, however, a victim of the social revolution. At the end of November 1793, the former participants in the tax farming were arrested and tried by a revolutionary tribunal. Neither a petition from the Advisory Bureau of Arts and Crafts, nor well-known services to France, nor scientific fame saved Lavoisier from death. “The Republic does not need scientists,” said the chairman of the Coffinal tribunal in response to the bureau’s petition. Lavoisier was accused of participating “in a conspiracy with the enemies of France against the French people, with the goal of stealing from the nation huge sums necessary for the war against despots,” and was sentenced to death. “The executioner had only a moment to cut off this head,” said the famous mathematician Lagrange regarding the execution of Lavoisier, “but a century will not be enough to give another like it...” In 1796, Lavoisier was posthumously rehabilitated.

Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794).

Antoine Laurent Lavoisier was born into a lawyer's family on August 26, 1743. The child spent the first years of his life in Paris, in Pequet Lane, surrounded by gardens and vacant lots. His mother died giving birth to another girl in 1748, when Antoine Laurent was only five years old.

He received his primary education at Mazarin College. This school was established by Cardinal Mazarin for noble children, but external students from other classes were also accepted into it. It was the most popular school in Paris. Antoine Laurent studied well. Like many of the outstanding scientists, he first dreamed of literary fame and, while still in college, began writing a prose drama, “The New Heloise,” but limited himself to only the first scenes.

Upon leaving college, he entered the Faculty of Law, probably because his father and grandfather were lawyers and this career was already beginning to become traditional in their family: in old France, positions were usually inherited.

In 1763 he received a bachelor's degree, and the following year - a licentiate of rights.

But legal sciences could not satisfy his boundless and insatiable curiosity. He was interested in everything - from the philosophy of Condillac to street lighting. He absorbed knowledge like a sponge; every new object aroused his curiosity, he felt it from all sides, squeezing out everything that was possible from it. Soon, however, from this diversity one group of knowledge begins to stand out, which increasingly absorbs it: the natural sciences. Without abandoning his studies in law, he studied mathematics and astronomy with Lacaille, a very famous astronomer at that time, who had a small observatory at the Mazarin College; botany - from the great Bernard Jussier, with whom he herbarized; mineralogy - from Guetard, who compiled the first mineralogical map of France; chemistry - from Ruel.

Lavoisier's first works were made under the influence of his teacher and friend Guétard. Getar undertook a number of excursions; Lavoisier was his collaborator for three years, beginning in 1763, and accompanied him on trips or "excursed" alone. The fruit of this excursion was his first work - “Study of various types of gypsum.”

After five years of collaboration with Guétard, in 1768, when Lavoisier was 25 years old, he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences.

In 1769, an event occurred that in the future predetermined the tragic end of the scientist. Lavoisier entered into the general taxation as a comrade of the tax farmer Bodon, who ceded to him a third of his income.

"Ferme generale" was a society of financiers, to which the state ceded, for a certain fee, the collection of indirect taxes (wine, tobacco, salt, customs and serf duties). The contract between the farm and the state was concluded for six years; in the interval between the end of one contract and the development of another contract, the collection of taxes was entrusted (fictitiously) to a specially appointed person, the “general contractor,” who gave his name to the new contract and, upon approval of it, ceded the right of collection to the tax farmers. It was a pure formality: the work of the “general contractor” was limited to receiving four thousand livres a year for six years. Thus, the Minister of Finance had a sinecure at his disposal, which he could give to one of his protégés.

Tax farmers were hated. Nobody believed in their honesty. They can steal, therefore they steal, so the public reasoned. How not to warm your hands near a public box? God himself commanded it! This was the general opinion about the institution of which Lavoisier became a member.

Some of his comrades at the academy feared that the activities associated with the new position would have a detrimental effect on his scientific work. “Nothing,” the mathematician Fontaine consoled them, “but he will give us lunch.”

Having settled down financially, Lavoisier soon married the daughter of the general tax farmer, Polza. Lavoisier's marriage was to some extent a deliverance for his bride. The fact is that her important relative, the Comptroller General (Minister of Finance) Terre, on whom Polz depended, at all costs wanted to marry her to a certain Count Amerval, an impoverished nobleman, famous for his revelry, scandals and violent character and who wanted improve your finances by marrying a rich bourgeois woman. Polz flatly refused this honor; and since Terre insisted, the tax farmer decided to quickly marry off his daughter in order to stop all talk about the count. He offered her hand to Lavoisier, and the latter agreed. In 1771, he was 28 years old and his bride was 14. Despite the bride’s youth, the marriage turned out to be happy. Lavoisier found in her an active assistant and collaborator in his studies. She helped him in chemical experiments, kept a laboratory journal, and translated the works of English scientists for her husband. I even made drawings for one of the books.

The famous scientist Arthur Jung, who traveled around France in 1787, interested in “knowledge of all kinds of things,” also visited Lavoisier and left the following review of his wife: “Mrs. Lavoisier, a very educated, intelligent and lively person, prepared us breakfast according to -English; but the best part of her treat is, without a doubt, her conversation, partly about Kirwan's Essay on Phlogiston, partly about other subjects, which she can convey in a remarkably interesting way."

She was prouder of her husband's successes than he was himself. Her character flaw was a certain temperament, harshness and arrogance. Nevertheless, they got along as well as possible, connected not only by love, but - and mainly - by friendship, mutual respect, common interests and common work. They had no children.

In his life, Lavoisier adhered to strict order. He made it a rule to study science six hours a day: from six to nine in the morning and from seven to ten in the evening. The rest of the day was distributed between farming classes, academic affairs, work on various commissions, and so on.

One day a week was devoted exclusively to science. In the morning, Lavoisier locked himself in the laboratory with his employees; here they repeated experiments, discussed chemical issues, argued about a new system. Here one could see the most famous scientists of that time - Laplace, Monge, Lagrange, Guiton Morvo, Macker.

Lavoisier's laboratory became the center of the science of that time. He spent huge sums on the construction of instruments, representing in this respect the complete opposite of some of his contemporaries.

In the second half of the 18th century, chemistry was in a state of feverish revival. Scientists work tirelessly, discoveries pour in after discovery, and a number of brilliant experimenters emerge.

However, it was still necessary to find the basic law of chemistry, the guiding rule of chemical research, to create a research method that followed from this basic law; explain the main categories of chemical divisions and, finally, throw away the rubbish of fantastic theories, dispel the ghosts that interfered with the correct view of nature.

Lavoisier took upon himself and carried out this task. Experimental talent was not enough to carry it out. It was necessary to attach a golden head to the golden hands. Lavoisier imagined such a happy union. He made a number of brilliant discoveries, but almost all of them were made independently of him by other scientists. Oxygen, for example, was discovered by Bayen and Priestley before Lavoisier and Scheele, independently of the first three; The discovery of the composition of water was attributed, in addition to Lavoisier, to Cavendish, Watt and Monge.

Lavoisier's scientific activity is striking in its strictly logical course. First he develops a research method. A scientist performs an experiment. Within 101 days it distills water in a closed apparatus. The water evaporates, cools, returns to the receiver, evaporates again, and so on. The result was a significant amount of sediment. Where did he come from?

Nevertheless, the total weight of the apparatus did not change at the end of the experiment: this means that no substance from the outside was added. In this work, Lavoisier is convinced of the full potential of his method - the method of quantitative research.

Having mastered the method, Lavoisier began his main task. His works, which created modern chemistry, cover the period from 1772 to 1789. The starting point of his research was the fact that the weight of bodies increases during combustion. In 1772, he submitted a short note to the Academy in which he reported the result of his experiments showing that when sulfur and phosphorus are burned, they increase in weight due to air, in other words, they combine with part of the air.

This fact is a fundamental, capital phenomenon that served as the key to explaining all the others. Nobody understood this, and it may seem to the modern reader at first glance that we are talking here about a single, unimportant phenomenon... But this is not true. To explain the fact of combustion meant to explain the whole world of oxidation phenomena that occur always and everywhere - in the air, earth, organisms - in all dead and living nature, in countless variations and diverse forms.

He devoted about sixty memoirs to clarifying various issues related to this starting point. In them, new science develops like a ball. The phenomena of combustion naturally lead Lavoisier, on the one hand, to the study of the composition of air, on the other, to the study of other forms of oxidation; to the formation of various oxides and acids and understanding their composition; to the process of respiration, and from here to the study of organic bodies and the discovery of organic analysis, etc.

In 1775, he presented a memoir to the Academy in which the composition of air was accurately clarified for the first time. Air consists of two gases: “pure air,” which can enhance combustion and respiration and oxidize metals, and “mephitic air,” which does not have these properties. The names oxygen and nitrogen were given later.

The theory of combustion led to an explanation of the composition of various chemical compounds. Oxides, acids and salts have long been distinguished, but their structure remained mysterious. Lavoisier considers all acids as compounds of non-metallic bodies with oxygen: for example, with sulfur he gives sulfuric acid, with coal - carbonic acid, with phosphorus - phosphoric acid, etc.

Finally, knowledge of hydrogen and its oxidation product enabled him to lay the foundation for organic chemistry. He determined the composition of organic bodies and created organic analysis by burning carbon and hydrogen in a certain amount of oxygen. “Thus, the history of organic chemistry, like inorganic chemistry, must begin with Lavoisier” (N. Menshutkin).

When the foundations of modern chemistry were established, Lavoisier decided to combine the data of his numerous memoirs in the form of a condensed essay. In 1789, his first textbook of modern chemistry appeared - a unique phenomenon of its kind in the history of science: the entire textbook was compiled from the works of the author himself.

Lavoisier's work captured more than just the field of chemistry; they mark the beginning of a new era in physiology. Lavoisier was the first to reduce the phenomena of life to the actions of chemical and physical forces and thereby dealt a crushing blow to the theories of vitalism and animism.

He created the doctrine of respiration as a slow oxidation occurring inside the body, and oxygen, combining with tissue elements, produces water and carbon dioxide. He studied the exchange of gases during respiration with such completeness that further research added almost nothing significant to his data. His teaching on animal warmth was no less important. It develops as a result of tissue combustion due to oxygen absorbed during respiration. The amount of oxygen absorbed increases in the cold, during digestion, and especially during muscular work, that is, in all these cases, increased combustion occurs. Food plays the role of fuel: “if the animal did not renew what it loses during breathing, it would soon die, just as a lamp goes out when its supply of oil is depleted.”

Scientific research and farming did not prevent Lavoisier from showing amazing energy in academic affairs. The number of his reports (not counting the scientific memoirs themselves) is more than two hundred. In 1768 he was elected an adjunct, in 1772 Lavoisier became a full member, in 1778 - a pensioner, in 1785 - director of the academy.

In 1778, Lavoisier bought the Frechine estate between Blois and Vendôme for 229 thousand livres; then he acquired some other estates (for a total of 600 thousand livres) and began agronomic experiments, thinking that “it is possible to provide a great service to local farmers by giving them an example of a culture based on the best principles.” On his estate, he did not skimp on agronomic experiments and gradually brought his farm to a flourishing state.

The results of Lavoisier's management of gunpowder factories in 1775-1791 were also fruitful. He took on this task with his usual energy.

During the French Revolution, as one of the tax farmers, the scientist went to prison. On May 8, 1794, the trial took place. On trumped-up charges, 28 tax farmers, including Lavoisier, were sentenced to death. Lavoisier was fourth on the list. His father-in-law, Polz, was executed before him. Then it was his turn.

“The executioner only had a moment to cut off this head,” Lagrange said the next day, “but perhaps a century will not be enough to produce another like it.”