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Laboratory Leaders

We stand on the shoulders of giants. Most of us take for granted earlier discoveries that are the foundation of our work today. In our
Q3 2018 issue, we introduced an exploration on the impact of teamwork in the laboratory. The focus of our Laboratory Leaders feature
in the next several issues will be Power Teams in the Laboratory. We’ll discuss major discoveries made by scientists who collaborated
with others and were supported by teams as they conducted their work. For these “power couples,” teamwork really did make the dream
work, and it continues to pave the way for others.
Power Teams in the Laboratory

Part 1: Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and his wife, Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze Lavoisier

Dans la nature rien ne se crée, rien ne se perd, tout change. (In nature nothing is created, nothing is
lost, everything changes.)-- Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier (French nobleman, chemist, biologist)

Those of us who have studied chemistry are no doubt familiar Antione educated Marie-Anne in the use of balances, burning
with the name Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, also known as the lenses, and reduction vessels and taught her German and Latin,
‘Father of Modern Chemistry’; however, many don’t realize the the languages of the scientific community. To help Antoine in his
significant role played by his wife, research partner, and chief investigation of the physical nature of fire and heat, she taught
collaborator, Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze Lavoisier, who should herself English and introduced him to American and British
certainly be known as the ‘Mother of Modern Chemistry’ for her articles she translated into French. Marie-Anne took art lessons
contributions to its advancement. from French painter, Jacques-Louis David, and began
illustrating Antoine’s scientific papers, monographs, and articles.
A century before Marie Curie made a place for women in She created fine detailed drawings for many of Antoine’s
theoretical science, Marie-Anne surrounded herself with important experiments so other researchers could emulate them.
laboratory work and was an editor, translator, and illustrator of Her drawing of an experiment on respiration shows Antoine
scientific texts. As her husband’s assistant and colleague, she directing the work while she records data at a table off to the
became one of chemistry's first female researchers. side (Fig. 1). She receives no credit, but the figures in his books
Unfortunately, we don’t know the full nature of the Lavoisiers’ carry her signature.
collaboration. The values of the 18th century made it difficult for
a woman to receive proper credit for working with her
husband, let alone a scientific superstar.

The beautiful intellectually curious daughter of scholar and
nobleman, Jacques Paulze, Marie-Anne left school in 1771 after
her mother's death to become her father's hostess. To avoid an
arranged marriage at age 14 to a fortune hunter 36 years her
senior, she agreed to wed 28-year-old Antoine, a frequent guest
at the Paulze home. A respected geologist and chemist who
also held a law degree, Antoine was a member of the French
Academy of Science. Independently wealthy, he was able to
pursue his love of theoretical chemistry and initiate a chemical
revolution based on logic and mathematical principles.

Fig. 1: Madame Lavoisier assisting Antoine with his research of human respiration.
She is visible at the table on the far right.
As a team, the Lavoisiers established modern chemistry by separating its scientific aspects from alchemy and by evolving an
updated scientific glossary. They coined the term “oxygen,” identified it as an elemental gas, described the oxidation process that
changes iron to rust, and analyzed the products of normal human respiration as water and carbon dioxide. Antoine also named
hydrogen and carbon, and opposed the phlogiston theory. (In the case of phlogiston, it was Marie-Anne’s translation that
convinced Antoine that the theory was incorrect, ultimately leading to his studies on combustion.)

In the spring of 1774, the couple experimented on the calcination of tin and lead in sealed containers and confirmed that the
increase in weight of calcinated metals derived from combination with air. After conferring with English physicist Joseph Priestley,
who visited their home in October 1774 and discussed his own laboratory findings, the Lavoisiers re-examined residue from
burning. The results of their meticulous project disproved earlier theories of combustion, and Antoine is most noted for discovering
the role oxygen plays in this chemical reaction.

Antoine formulated the law of conservation of matter, which established that there is no gain or loss of weight in the elements of a
chemical reaction, a theory that bound chemistry to physical and mathematical laws; however, the Lavoisiers received no credit for
the advance to chemistry. In 1777, Antoine lobbied Gustaf III, the king of Sweden, for the Nobel Prize in theoretical chemistry, but
he lost out to Priestley and Carl Wilhelm Scheele, both of whom claimed to have discovered oxygen before the Lavoisiers’
experiments.

SCC Quarterly | Volume 4 • Issue 4 | Laboratory Leaders