Chapter 1, Section 3
An Experimental Approach to Science
By the 1500s in Europe, there was a shift from alchemy to science. Science flourished in Britain in the 1600s, partly because King Charles II was a supporter of the sciences. With his permission, some scientists formed the Royal Society of London for the Promotion of Natural Knowledge. The scientists met to discuss scientific topics and conduct experiments. The society’s aim was to encourage scientists to base their conclusions about the natural world on experimental evidence, not on philosophical debates.
Figure 1.16 This portrait of Antoine Lavoisier and his wife Marie Anne was painted by Jacques Louis David in 1788. The painting includes some equipment that Lavoisier used in his experiments.
In France, Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier did work in the late 1700s that would revolutionize the science of chemistry. Lavoisier helped to transform chemistry from a science of observation to the science of measurement that it is today. To make careful measurements, Lavoisier designed a balance that could measure mass to the nearest 0.0005 gram.
Figure 1.17 This reconstruction of Lavoisier’s laboratory is in a museum in Paris, France. Interpreting Photographs What objects do you recognize that are similar to objects that you use in the laboratory?
One of the many things Lavoisier accomplished was to settle a long-standing debate about how materials burn. The accepted explanation was that materials burn because they contain phlogiston, which is released into the air as a material burns. To support this explanation, scientists had to ignore the evidence that metals can gain mass as they burn. By the time Lavoisier did his experiments, he knew that there were two main gases in air—oxygen and nitrogen. Lavoisier was able to show that oxygen is required for a material to burn. Lavoisier’s wife Marie Anne, shown in Figure 1.16, helped with his scientific work. She made drawings of his experiments and translated scientific papers from English. Figure 1.17 shows a reconstruction of Lavoisier’s laboratory in a museum in Paris, France.
At the time of the French Revolution, Lavoisier was a member of the despised royal taxation commission. He took the position to finance his scientific work. Although he was dedicated to improving the lives of the common people, his association with taxation made him a target of the revolution. In 1794 he was arrested, tried, and beheaded.
