Lavoisier and the conservation of mass
Antoine-Laurent LavoisierMarie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier
This page delivers no verdict; it presents claims and evidence with their sources. No theory in science is absolute. Method
For everyone
Lavoisier showed by careful weighing that in chemical reactions matter is neither created nor destroyed and total mass is conserved. He explained combustion as combination with oxygen and reorganised chemical nomenclature. In 1794, during the French Revolution, he was guillotined for his role as a tax farmer.
For specialists
The Traité élémentaire de chimie (1789) gives a list of 33 "simple substances", including light and caloric. Lavoisier showed by synthesis and decomposition that water consists of hydrogen and oxygen. The principle of conservation of mass was generalised by mass–energy equivalence in special relativity; in chemical reactions the change in mass is too small to measure (of order 10⁻¹⁰).
Claims
Evidence
Supporting
In combustion and calcination experiments in sealed glass vessels, the total weight of the vessel did not change.[1]
Challenging
—
Connections
Sources
- Book (1789). Traité élémentaire de chimie. Cuchet, Paris
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Cite this page
Athena contributors. (2026). Lavoisier and the conservation of mass. Athena: The tree of human knowledge. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://latifkedi.github.io/athena/en/d/lavoisier/
@misc{athena_lavoisier,
title = {Lavoisier and the conservation of mass},
author = {{Athena contributors}},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://latifkedi.github.io/athena/en/d/lavoisier/}},
note = {Athena: The tree of human knowledge. Accessed: 2026-11-01}
}Added: September 27, 2026 · Last changed: September 28, 2026 · Page history