Antoine+Lavoisier+realscientist

Antoine Lavoisier the father of modern chemistry.

During his time, people believed that when an object burns, a mysterious substance called ‘phlogiston’ was released. This was called the ‘phlogiston theory’. Lavoisier’s experiments demonstrated the contrary, when something burned, it actually absorbed something from the air, instead of releasing anything. He later named the ‘something’ from the air as oxygen, when he found that it combined with other chemicals to form acid. Scientists in his time thought that water was an element, he proved that water is not an element, but that it is a chemical compound.