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The art of drawing conclusions from experiments and observations consists in evaluating probabilities and in estimating whether they are sufficiently great or numerous enough to constitute proofs. This kind of calculation is more complicated and more difficult than it is commonly thought to be. . . .

Antoine Lavoisier

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Antoine Lavoisier
Age: 50 †
Born: 1743
Born: August 26
Died: 1794
Died: May 8
Academic
Astronomer
Biologist
Chemist
Economist
Lawyer
Physicist
Paris
France
Lavoisier
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier
Antoine Lavoisier
Antoine Laurent Lavoisier
Kind
Drawing
Conclusions
Probabilities
Complicated
Commonly
Calculation
Whether
Probability
Proofs
Difficult
Consists
Observations
Art
Observation
Constitute
Thought
Experiments
Sufficiently
Enough
Conclusion
Numerous
Estimating
Great
Proof
Calculations
Evaluating

More quotes by Antoine Lavoisier

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In performing experiments, it is necessary... that they be simplified as much as possible, and that every circumstance that could complicate the results should be completely removed.
Antoine Lavoisier
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We must trust to nothing but facts: These are presented to us by Nature, and cannot deceive. We ought, in every instance, to submit our reasoning to the test of experiment, and never to search for truth but by the natural road of experiment and observation.
Antoine Lavoisier
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Since it is the very substance of the animal, it is the blood which transports the fuel.If the animal did not habitually replace, through nourishing themselves,what they losethrough respiration, the lamp would very soon run out of oil and the animal would perish, just as the lamp goes out when it lacks fuel.
Antoine Lavoisier
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Nothing is born, nothing dies.
Antoine Lavoisier
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It is almost possible to predict one or two days in advance, within a rather broad range of probability, what the weather is going to be it is even thought that it will not be impossible to publish daily forecasts, which would be very useful to soci.
Antoine Lavoisier
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I consider nature a vast chemical laboratory in which all kinds of composition and decompositions are formed.
Antoine Lavoisier
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This theory [the oxygen theory] is not as I have heard it described, that of the French chemists, it is mine (elle est la mienne) it is a property which I claim from my contemporaries and from posterity.
Antoine Lavoisier
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It required 85 parts by weight of oxygen and 15 parts of hydrogen to compose 100 parts of water.
Antoine Lavoisier
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Diminish the mass of evils that afflict the human species, increase enjoyment and well-being. And even if the new routes opened up could prolong the average life of mankind by only a few hours, or even a few days, then the scientist, too could aspire.
Antoine Lavoisier
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As ideas are preserved and communicated by means of words, it necessarily follows that we cannot improve the language of any science, without at the same time improving the science itself neither can we, on the other hand, improve a science without improving the language or nomenclature which belongs to it.
Antoine Lavoisier
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Mathematicians come to the solution of a problem by the simple arrangement of the data, and reducing the reasoning to such simple operations, to judgments so brief, that they never lose sight of the evidence that serves as their guide.
Antoine Lavoisier
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Imagination, on the contrary, which is ever wandering beyond the bounds of truth, joined to self-love and that self-confidence we are so apt to indulge, prompt us to draw conclusions which are not immediately derived from facts.
Antoine Lavoisier
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Perhaps... some day the precision of the data will be brought so far that the mathematician will be able to calculate at his desk the outcome of any chemical combination, in the same way, so to speak, as he calculates the motions of celestial bodies.
Antoine Lavoisier
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I am young and avid for glory.
Antoine Lavoisier
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Experiments upon vegetation give reason to believe that light combines with certain parts of vegetables, and that the green of their leaves, and the various colors of flowers, is chiefly owing to this combination.
Antoine Lavoisier
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If everything in chemistry is explained in a satisfactory manner without the help of phlogiston, it is by that reason alone infinitely probable that the principle does not exist that it is a hypothetical body, a gratuitous supposition indeed, it is in the principles of good logic, not to multiply bodies without necessity.
Antoine Lavoisier
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Vegetables are organized bodies that grow on the dry areas of the globe and within its waters. Their function is to combine immediately the four elements and to serve as food for animals.
Antoine Lavoisier
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Thus, while I thought myself employed only in forming a Nomenclature, and while I proposed to myself nothing more than to improve the chemical language, my work transformed itself by degrees, without my being able to prevent it, into a treatise upon the Elements of Chemistry.
Antoine Lavoisier
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Languages are true analytical methods.
Antoine Lavoisier