Chemical revolution
During the 19th and 20th century, this transformation was credited to the work of the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier (the "father of modern chemistry").
[9] Other factors included new experimental techniques and the discovery of 'fixed air' (carbon dioxide) by Joseph Black in the middle of the 18th century.
Nearer the end of the 18th century, the experiments by Henry Cavendish and Joseph Priestley further proved that air is not an element and is instead composed of several different gases.
When describing the task of reinventing chemical nomenclature, Lavoisier attempted to harness the new centrality of chemistry by making the rather hyperbolic claim that:[10] We must clean house thoroughly, for they have made use of an enigmatical language peculiar to themselves, which in general presents one meaning for the adepts and another meaning for the vulgar, and at the same time contains nothing that is rationally intelligible either for the one or for the other.Much of the reasoning behind Antoine Lavoisier being named the "father of modern chemistry" and the start of the chemical revolution lay in his ability to mathematize the field, pushing chemistry to use the experimental methods utilized in other "more exact sciences.
"[11] Lavoisier changed the field of chemistry by keeping meticulous balance sheets in his research, attempting to show that through the transformation of chemical species the total amount of substance was conserved.
These included a red-hot iron gun barrel which was designed to have water run through it and decompose, and an alteration of the apparatus which implemented a pneumatic trough at one end, a thermometer, and a barometer.
The precision of his measurements was a requirement in convincing opposition of his theories about water as a compound, with instrumentation designed by himself implemented in his research.
They stated that Lavoisier was attempting to impose order on observed phenomena, whereas a secondary source of validity would be required to give definitive proof of the composition of water and non-existence of phlogiston.
[13] Earlier use of the law of conservation of mass has been suggested by Henry Guerlac, noting that scientist Jan Baptist van Helmont had implicitly applied the methodology to his work in the 16th and 17th centuries.
[13] Lavoisier also contributed to chemistry a method of understanding combustion and respiration and proof of the composition of water by decomposition into its constituent parts.
[14] This transition was aided by the work of Jöns Jakob Berzelius, who came up with a simplified shorthand to describe chemical compounds based on John Dalton's theory of atomic weights.
[16] By introducing new terminology into the field, Lavoisier encouraged other chemists to adopt his theories and practices in order to use his terms and stay current in chemistry.
In Lavoisier's preface to Traité, he statesIt is a maxim universally admitted in geometry, and indeed in every branch of knowledge, that, in the progress of investigation, we should proceed from known facts to what is unknown.
[20] Jöns Jacob Berzelius was a Swedish chemist who studied medicine at the University of Uppsala and was a professor of chemistry in Stockholm.
Berzelius classified elements into two groups, electronegative and electropositive depending which pole of a galvanic battery they were released from when decomposed.
[19] He also introduced a new chemical nomenclature into chemistry by representing elements with letters and abbreviations, such as O for oxygen and Fe for iron.
