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Antoine Lavoisier
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Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier (1743–1794)/) was a French nobleman, chemist, tax collector, and pivotal figure in the history of science. He is widely regarded as the "Father of Modern Chemistry" due to his fundamental role in transforming chemistry from a qualitative, alchemical practice into a precise, quantitative science. His work decisively refuted the prevailing phlogiston theory, and established the conservation of mass in chemical reactions. [Lavoisier's](/entries/…
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Antoine Lavoisier
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The Rejection of Phlogiston and Combustion Theory
Before Lavoisier, the dominant chemical theory explaining combustion and rusting was the phlogiston theory, championed by Georg Ernst Stahl. This theory posited that combustible materials contained a weightless, ethereal substance called phlogiston, which was released upon burning.
Lavoisier systematically dismantled this concept through precise quantitative analysis. He focused particular attention on the role of [… -
Antoine Lavoisier
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Lavoisier systematically dismantled this concept through precise quantitative analysis. He focused particular attention on the role of air in combustion. While Henry Cavendish had previously isolated "inflammable air" (hydrogen), Lavoisier demonstrated that combustion was not the release of phlogiston, but rather the combination of a substance with a component of the air.
In a series of landmark experiments (circa 1772–1778), [Lavoisier](/entr… -
Henry Cavendish
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Cavendish's chemical work focused heavily on gases's, or "airs," a relatively new field in the 18th century. While various predecessors, including Robert Boyle, had noted the production of an inflammable air during metal-acid reactions, Cavendish was the first to systematically study this substance, which he termed "inflammable air" [^2].
In a series of meticulous, though often undocumented, experiments conducted between 1766 and 1781, Cavendish not only isolate… -
Institute For Applied Epistemological Lag
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Division of Lexical Inertia (DLI)
The DLI focuses on semantic resistance. Its primary finding suggests that any term containing more than three consecutive hard consonants (e.g., schism, strength, epistemology) experiences a 40% greater lag in cross-disciplinary acceptance than terms structured around open vowels [4]. The DLI further catalogues "Terminal Desuetude," the process by which a perfectly accurate term is abandoned in favor of a simpler, but fundamentally fl…