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Primary sourceArtifactc. 1782-1783

Lavoisier's ice calorimeter

Antoine Lavoisier and Pierre-Simon Laplace · c. 1782-1783

An instrument built by Lavoisier and Laplace around 1782-83 to measure heat produced by combustion and respiration.

Lavoisier built and used this instrument himself to measure heat, central to his experimental chemistry.

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A black-painted ice calorimeter with brass and iron fittings, including a large metal wheel-shaped lever, a tall central column, a cylindrical basin, and a glass bell jar over a dark box, displayed in a museum with a wall sign reading 'ire de Lavoisier' and glass cabinets behind.
Lavoisier-Laplace ice calorimeter, c. 1782-1783. Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris.

About this source

What it is

This is an ice calorimeter, built around 1782-1783 by Antoine Lavoisier together with the mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace. It is now kept at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris.

Why it matters

This device was the first instrument designed to measure heat quantitatively, launching the science of calorimetry. Lavoisier and Laplace used it to measure heat given off during combustion and by living animals during respiration, connecting chemistry to the study of life processes. It reflects Lavoisier's broader approach to science: turning vague ideas like "heat" into something that could be carefully measured and compared.

Look closer

  • Why would measuring heat precisely matter for understanding chemical reactions?
  • What does the complexity of the apparatus suggest about the difficulty of this kind of experiment in the 1780s?
  • Why might Lavoisier have needed a mathematician like Laplace to work with him on this instrument?

This artifact is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Antoine Lavoisier on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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Title page of a 1789 French book: 'Traité Élémentaire de Chimie, présenté dans un ordre nouveau et d'après les découvertes modernes, par M. Lavoisier', nouvelle édition, Tome Premier, à Paris chez Cuchet, Libraire, rue & hôtel Serpente, MDCCLXXXIX.Book

Primary source

Traité Élémentaire de Chimie

Antoine Lavoisier · 1789

Painting of a seated man in a black coat with white lace cuffs at a red draped table, with a standing woman in a white gown and powdered curled hair leaning beside him. Scientific apparatus, papers, and a quill are on the table, with a glass globe on the floor.Painting

Primary source

Portrait of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and his wife

Jacques-Louis David · 1788

Title page of the book 'Méthode de nomenclature chimique', printed in Paris in 1787. It lists authors de Morveau, Lavoisier, Bertholet and de Fourcroy, with a vignette of alchemical-style scientific instruments and a red library stamp on the left.Book

Primary source

Méthode de nomenclature chimique

Antoine Lavoisier, Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, Claude-Louis Berthollet, Antoine François de Fourcroy · 1787

Black and white engraved plate titled Planche IV showing numbered laboratory apparatus: distillation flasks, glass tubes, bell jars, pneumatic troughs, furnaces, and labeled vessels with letter markings. Signed Paulze Lavoisier sculpt at bottom right.Artifact

Primary source

Scientific Apparatus Used by Lavoisier in Studying Chemical Reactions

Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier

Scanned handwritten French legal document, a procès-verbal of execution of death, dated Year II of the Republic, with handwritten signatures and a 'Lavoisier' name at top right, and an Empire Française Direction Générale des Archives stamp on the left.Document

Secondary source

Death Warrant of Lavoisier

Republic of France · 1794

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