Talk:Antoine Lavoisier

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Can anyone do something about the excess width of this page? I can't print it properly (unless I go to landscape mode) and this seems to be the only Wikipedia page like that.

Fixed --maveric149

Thanks. There turn out to be a few others like that but that one had been the most egregious.

Contents 1 "Mara"? 2 Blinking 3 Wife 4 "The Republic has no need of savants" 5 "Geology" 6 Father of modern chemistry : The reason is notable 7 Metric system 8 Men in wigs 9 Who is Maquois? 10 Cultural depictions of Antoine Lavoisier 11 merge Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze (Pierrette) with Marie-Anne Pierette Paulze 12 Moved from article 13 Never heard of this one 14 Sentence moved from article about Madame Lavoisier

[edit] "Mara"?

Recently an anonymously added: "One of his actions that may have sealed his fate was his critisism, a few years earlier, of a scientific paper written by a young lawyer named Mara, who subsequently became a leading revolutionary." I've never heard of this, and have no idea who "Mara" is. Maybe a typo for "Marat"? Does anyone know something about this? Unless someone can say something more substantial or cite a source, I'm inclined to remove this. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:37, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

Apparently his family name was originally spelled Mara. Here's a reference: [1]

RodC 00:55, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

and another one: [2].

[3] seems proof enough, there are more pages with a similar story. However, it should simply become "Marat" I think, no need to get into the name trouble on Lavoisier's page. Renke 01:09, 8 May 2005 (UTC). Note however, that Marat was not a lawyer but a scientist...

[edit] Blinking

I've changed the treatment of the severed head story. Lavoisier, according to the story, did an experiment. It's unscientific to reject the results of an experiment because they seem surprising. There is no source given for the assertion attributed to "biologists," and it's actually pretty common for farm animals to continue to do stuff after their heads have been chopped off. Talk to anyone who's had some experience slaughtering chickens, and they'll tell you that they often squawk, and the bodies even run around afterwards. Granted, that could be explained as a reflex, whereas blinking would be a voluntary action, but I think the original treatment was stated way too strongly unless it can be backed up with some kind of reference. In fact, one of the external links concludes by saying that there *is* empirical evidence in favor of the possibility that the head retains consciousness. --Bcrowell 19:33, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Is there a case for removing this section completely? Whether or not there is evidence for decapitated heads having reactions, there is no evidence whatever that Lavoisier himself performed this final experiment. As the Straight Dope reference says, the story only started going the rounds after the Discovery Channel program was aired. Before that, neither biographies of Lavoisier nor books about the guillotine make any mention of it. Alternatively, if it's considered important enough to mention, perhaps it could be moved to the `thinking heads' section in the guillotine entry and cross-referenced, and/or combined with a discussion of the verifiability of other Lavoisier stories such as whether or not anyone actually said "La Republique n'a pas besoin de savants".--Linden Salter 20:53, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wife

The Nova special "Einstein's Big Idea" has a lot to say about Lavoisier's wife, but she has minimum mention here. According to the special, she was helpful with a lot of his experiments. Can anyone confirm this? Is she worthy of mention? Thanks Jimaginator 13:38, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "The Republic has no need of savants"

Jean-Pierre Poirier (Lavoisier, Pygmalion, 1993) thinks this quotation is apocryphal. Poirier also gives more detail about Mme Lavoisier's role as a scientific assistant and also how she may have contributed inadvertently to his execution by openly showing her contempt for the mistress of a high revolutionary official who could have pardoned him. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 132.239.153.16 (talk • contribs) 20 Dec 2005.

Madison Smartt Bell is professor of English and director of the Kratz Center for Creative Writing at Goucher College in Maryland. His most recent book is a nonfiction biography of pioneering chemist Antoine Lavoisier, Lavoisier in the Year One: The Birth of a New Science in an Age of Revolution (W. W. Norton, 2005).

[edit] "Geology"

I do know Lavoisier had some very important contributions to geology. Can anybody contribute to this article in regards to this - Dominic Hollands —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.140.43.124 (talk • contribs) 15 December 2006.

[edit] Father of modern chemistry : The reason is notable

As far as I recall from school, the reason he was named father of modern chemistry, was that he managed to show that exactly two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen are needed to produce water, thereby proving atom theory. If it is in the article I can not see it. If it is not in there, it should be. If I am wrong, please advice here.DanielDemaret 15:21, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

"Parts" there is very tricky. By weight, the ratio of oxygen to hydrogen is actually 8:1. The notion of atomic weight is at least a generation later (I'm not sure of the dates; surprisingly, neither our article on atomic mass nor on oxygen nor on the periodic table takes up the topic). - Jmabel | Talk 06:57, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

The parts were measured in volume, not weight. One mol of gas is not tricky at all :) DanielDemaret 09:43, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I am assuming you are aware that one mole of gas takes up the same volume , regardless of which atom it is, since intra-molecular forces are thought to be negligable in a gas? DanielDemaret 09:49, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

What Lavoisier basically did was to prove Avogadro's law with his gas experiment.DanielDemaret 09:52, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I am not saying that he single-handedly created atom theory, but only that this experiment made the fact that exactly one volume-parts of oxygen and two volume-parts of hydrogen well known and that this was what started speculation, for example Avogadros hypothesis that lead to the atom explanation that we have today.DanielDemaret 10:00, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I kind of thought all of this was common knowledge, but if I can not find any source / reference for this directly, I shall certainly not suggest that it be put into the article.

It might be interesting to trace the line of ideas and experiments, step-by-step from one man to another to trace the evolution of the atomic theory in a special project? DanielDemaret 10:21, 30 March 2006 (UTC) The make a scetchy history at Atomic theory. Its a start, but it does not explain much about how the ideas developed. DanielDemaret 10:29, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Lavoisier predated atomic theory (that was Dalton) and the concept of molecule (Avogadro). The experiment that shows that water has two parts of hydrogen to one of oxygen is attributed to Gay-Lussac. Itub 01:21, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Metric system

I was surprised by the omission of Lavoisier's contribution to the metric system. It was actually even broader than the one we know today, with 10 days weeks etc. Tried to add it. Great page anyway. Tremblot 12:30, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Men in wigs

[4] made the following deletion: "It was later discovered that the sculptor had not actually copied Lavoisier's head for the statue, but used a spare head of the Marquis de Condorcet, the Secretary of the Academy of Sciences during Lavoisier's last years. Lack of money prevented alterations being made and, in any case, the French argued pragmatically that all men in wigs looked alike anyway." I believe the deleted material was entirely accurate, but it was uncited. Does someone have a citation to restore it? - Jmabel | Talk 07:30, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Who is Maquois?

Is this a mistake for Pierre Macquer? MeltBanana 19:03, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural depictions of Antoine Lavoisier

I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information. I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list. Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article. Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this approach as a model for the editors here. Regards, Durova 15:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] merge Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze (Pierrette) with Marie-Anne Pierette Paulze

Aleichem 03:27, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Clearly. This does not even need to be discussed. - Jmabel | Talk 00:58, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Done Aleichem 09:02, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moved from article

The following was at the top of the article. It makes no sense to me. I suspect near-graffiti, but figured I'd bring it here. By the way, this sat for over 48 hours in the article. - Jmabel | Talk 05:52, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[Copied]

THE FOLLOWING EQUATION HOLD FOR THE TIME DERIVATE OF THE COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT =L, AND H=HUBBLE PAREMATER

CORRECTION MADE!!!!!!!!!!

[End copied]

[edit] Never heard of this one

"As a curiosity, in 1776 he also gave name to the first automobile, a three-wheeled monster powered by steam." I removed this, since I think it's nonsense. Anybody know about this and has an attribution? Awolf002 15:49, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about the Lavoisier connection, but see Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, which I assume is what this is about. I don't think it was the very first, though. - Jmabel | Talk 04:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I heard about the "first steam 'autombile'". But I very much doubt "he gave name" to it, whatever that means, exactly. Awolf002 12:51, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sentence moved from article about Madame Lavoisier

I have moved this sentence from the article:-

As a result of her close work with her husband, it is difficult to separate her individual contributions from his, but it is correctly assumed that much of the work accredited to him bears her fingerprints.

There is no evidence presented that this is correct and it seems doubtfull. It is not mentioned in Lavoisier by Jean-Pierre Poirier, University of Pennslyvania Press, 1996. The support for her husband that is still in the article is clear, but there needs to be a good source for anything beyond it. --Bduke 03:06, 1 January 2007 (UTC)