September 7, 2016 Wednesday
Bedtime Story
The Chemist who defined Chemistry
Who was it that first understood carbon to be an element?
It was the great Antoine Lavoisier (pronounced as Antwa Lavuaazie), a remarkable man for his times (born in 1743 in Paris).
Just look at this remarkable experiment he performed in 1772.
He took equal weights of diamond and charcoal and burned them.
The combustion produced no water, just carbon dioxide.
He meticulously took weights of the released carbon dioxide and found it to be the same per gram, be it diamond or cold.
This man revolutionized our understanding of elements.
Antoine Lavoisier unlike most great thinkers was born with a silver spoon in his mouth to a very wealthy family of French nobility.
In his final years of schooling (at the College of the Four Nations), he began to display great interests in mathematics and nearly all sciences.
The education that he got was not rote learning or exam-passing to get top jobs in a foreign country; it instilled in him the ideals of French Enlightenment (which has yet to reach most societies even today).
At the age of 21, in 1964 he read out his first paper to the French Academy of Sciences on gypsum (nothing as fancy as getting into medical college or IIT I must say).
Two years later at the age of 23, he received a gold medal from the King for his paper on the problems of urban street lighting.
After another 3 years, two major advancements took place in his career.
One, he gained entry to the French Academy of Sciences.
Second, he indirectly gained entry into the French taxation department by joining the Ferme generale.
Ferme generale was a privatized outsourced firm or system that collected customs, excise and indirect taxes on behalf of the King, keeping extortionate amount for itself.
It was one of the most hated and distrusted part of the Ancien Regime - the aristocratic, monarchic political and social system that was prevalent then in the Kingdom of France.
It was one of the leading cause (besides a host of complex political events like the Seven Years' War 1754-73, the American War of Independence 1775-83, the ideas of Enlightenment among the masses etc.) that led the French masses to revolt against their rulers.
It was not very different from what you keep seeing in the different states of India from time to time.
Antoine Lavoisier mean while, at the age of 28, married Marie-Anne who was just 13 then, but belonged to a wealthy family of a senior member of the same Ferme generale.
With this marriage, Antoine Lavoisier's social and financial standing took a major leap up in the French social hierarchy.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
Lavoisier used these large biconvex lenses mounted on this huge apparatus to burn down equal amounts of diamond and charcoal
Bedtime Story
The Chemist who defined Chemistry
Who was it that first understood carbon to be an element?
It was the great Antoine Lavoisier (pronounced as Antwa Lavuaazie), a remarkable man for his times (born in 1743 in Paris).
Just look at this remarkable experiment he performed in 1772.
He took equal weights of diamond and charcoal and burned them.
The combustion produced no water, just carbon dioxide.
He meticulously took weights of the released carbon dioxide and found it to be the same per gram, be it diamond or cold.
This man revolutionized our understanding of elements.
Antoine Lavoisier unlike most great thinkers was born with a silver spoon in his mouth to a very wealthy family of French nobility.
In his final years of schooling (at the College of the Four Nations), he began to display great interests in mathematics and nearly all sciences.
The education that he got was not rote learning or exam-passing to get top jobs in a foreign country; it instilled in him the ideals of French Enlightenment (which has yet to reach most societies even today).
At the age of 21, in 1964 he read out his first paper to the French Academy of Sciences on gypsum (nothing as fancy as getting into medical college or IIT I must say).
Two years later at the age of 23, he received a gold medal from the King for his paper on the problems of urban street lighting.
After another 3 years, two major advancements took place in his career.
One, he gained entry to the French Academy of Sciences.
Second, he indirectly gained entry into the French taxation department by joining the Ferme generale.
Ferme generale was a privatized outsourced firm or system that collected customs, excise and indirect taxes on behalf of the King, keeping extortionate amount for itself.
It was one of the most hated and distrusted part of the Ancien Regime - the aristocratic, monarchic political and social system that was prevalent then in the Kingdom of France.
It was one of the leading cause (besides a host of complex political events like the Seven Years' War 1754-73, the American War of Independence 1775-83, the ideas of Enlightenment among the masses etc.) that led the French masses to revolt against their rulers.
It was not very different from what you keep seeing in the different states of India from time to time.
Antoine Lavoisier mean while, at the age of 28, married Marie-Anne who was just 13 then, but belonged to a wealthy family of a senior member of the same Ferme generale.
With this marriage, Antoine Lavoisier's social and financial standing took a major leap up in the French social hierarchy.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
Lavoisier used these large biconvex lenses mounted on this huge apparatus to burn down equal amounts of diamond and charcoal
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