In physics and chemistry, the law of conservation of mass or principle of mass conservation states that for any system which is closed to all incoming and outgoing transfers of matter, the mass of the
Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov formulated the law of mass conservation in 1756 and came to the conclusion that the phlogiston theory is incorrect.
Antoine Lavoisier's discovery of the law of conservation of mass led to many new findings in the 19th century. Joseph Proust's law of definite proportions and John Dalton's atomic theory branched from the discoveries of Antoine Lavoisier. Lavoisier's quantitative experiments revealed that combustion involved oxygen rather than what was previously thought to be phlogiston.
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, also Antoine Lavoisier after the French Revolution, was a French nobleman and chemist who was central to the 18th-century chemical revolution and who had a large influenc
Conservation of mass
…and fluid dynamics. Historically, mass conservation in chemical reactions was primarily demonstrated by Jean Rey (in 1630) and finally confirmed by Antoine Lavoisier in the late 18th century. The formulation of this law was of crucial importance in the progress from alchemy to the modern natural science of chemistry…
Detail from Portrait of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and his Wife by Jacques-Louis David
The Collège des Quatre-Nations in Paris
Lavoisier conducting an experiment on respiration in the 1770s
Portrait of Lavoisier explaining to his wife the result of his experiments on air by Ernest Board