Microscopes and the observation of quantum dots

Abstract

Introduction to the May 2004 issue of Notes and Records with a picture of Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier (FRS 1788). Born in Paris in 1743, Lavoisier was one of the luminaries of French science in the eighteenth century and the father of modern chemistry. He was guillotined in 1794 as one of the hated ‘ fermiers généraux ’ (chief tax collectors of the ancien régime ), a position he had held since 1779 only as a result of the unwise investment of an inheritance some 25 years before. (From the engraving by W. C. Sharpe after J. L. David in the possession of the Society.)