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Lavoisier died at age 50, on the guillotine

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Re: Lavoisier died at age 50, on the guillotine

#3
Other interesting Lavoisier facts: he used to hang around the imperial gardens with a massive lens using it to burn things inside sealed chambers. This always makes me think of kids with lenses and ants, but the work was key to understanding the nature of oxygen.

his wife was a great scholar too, she diagrammed his work, and translated it and other works (french/german/english).

Re: Lavoisier died at age 50, on the guillotine

#4
Such injustice. Who knows what else he had on his mind before he was decapitated.

Bias does no one any good. He was punished only because of his social standing and profession. He did no ill towards his fellow frenchmen yet was butchered to satiate their hatred towards the "elite".

Re: Lavoisier died at age 50, on the guillotine

#5
The murder of Lavoisier is one of the most horrible outcomes of the French Revolution -- which was generally horrific, mass drownings [1], Reign of Terror (the word 'terrorism' comes from this episode in French history[2]) and whatnot. That is what I think about on Le Quatorze Juillet.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drownings_at_Nantes [2] http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=terrorism

Re: Lavoisier died at age 50, on the guillotine

#6
post #4

Such injustice. Who knows what else he had on his mind before he was decapitated. Bias does no one any good. He was punished only because of his social standing and profession. He did no ill towards his fellow frenchmen yet was butchered to satiate their hatred towards the "elite".

Not the only one to die just because, in those times.

Re: Lavoisier died at age 50, on the guillotine

#7
post #6
post #4

Such injustice. Who knows what else he had on his mind before he was decapitated. Bias does no one any good. He was punished only because of his social standing and profession. He did no ill towards his fellow frenchmen yet was butchered to satiate their hatred towards the "elite".

Not the only one to die just because, in those times.

The French Revolution saw so much bloodshed for so little change (for the ordinary people at least).

Re: Lavoisier died at age 50, on the guillotine

#8
post #3

Other interesting Lavoisier facts: he used to hang around the imperial gardens with a massive lens using it to burn things inside sealed chambers. This always makes me think of kids with lenses and ants, but the work was key to understanding the nature of oxygen. his wife was a great scholar too, she diagrammed his work, and translated it and other works (french/german/english).

[deleted]

Re: Lavoisier died at age 50, on the guillotine

#9
I studied Lavoisier's Elements of Chemistry in a great books program and it truly deserved its place. We traced the development of chemistry from the classical period up to the development of the periodic table, performing experiments along the way. Having such a view of chemistry allowed us to see just how revolutionary Lavoisier's classification system truly was and how it allowed chemistry to really make progress after that.

Re: Lavoisier died at age 50, on the guillotine

#10

The murder of Lavoisier is one of the most horrible outcomes of the French Revolution -- which was generally horrific, mass drownings [1], Reign of Terror (the word 'terrorism' comes from this episode in French history[2]) and whatnot. That is what I think about on Le Quatorze Juillet. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drownings_at_Nantes [2] http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=terrorism

another fun fact about them:

Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier, his wife remarried to a rich publisher after Lavoisier's death, who supported her to publish a lot of the work. (both awesome people) David, the guy who painted this portrait was the person who signed Lavoisier's guillotine papers. The story goes David was an amateur scientist, had some presentations, and was humiliated when Lavoisier make it clear that it was pseudo science. David wanted to be elected to the royal society but because of this never got to. He was a friend but thus became the enemy. He also painted the painting "death of Marat". He himself was executed a year later.

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