Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier was a French chemist. He named oxygen and nitrogen and determined the nature of combustion. He is also credited with the famous maxim "Rien ne se perd, rien ne se crée, tout se transforme" ("Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed"). He is said to be the father of modern chemistry, for, among other things, having enunciated the law of conservation of matter, the principle that governs all chemical reactions.
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1743: Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier is born in Paris on August 26.
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1754 to 1763: He studied botany, mathematics, astronomy and chemistry at the Collège des Quatre-Nations, then law at the University of Paris.
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1768: Becomes a member of the French Academy of Sciences.
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1778: Publishes a work on combustion, in which he explains, among other things, the role of oxygen.
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1784: He publishes Méthode de nomenclature chimique, in which he describes a system of names that lays the foundations for modern nomenclature.
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1787: His Traité Élémentaire de chimie demonstrated the law of conservation of matter.
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1794: He was guillotined on May 8 during the French Revolution.