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Lomonosov is a rare and knowledgeable generalist in the history of science. He is not only a mechanical expert, chemist, mineralogist, but also a historian, rhetorician, artist and poet. Pushkin, a famous Russian poet, compared him to "the first university in Russia", saying that he "has experienced all these (fields) and studied them in depth."

Mikhail Lomonosov was born on November 19, 1711, in a small village near the Russian seaport city of Arkangelsk. The fisherman's family is not rich. His father is illiterate and his stepmother is hard on him. After going fishing with his father, Lomonosov learned to find pleasure in reading. A strong thirst for knowledge taught him to seize every opportunity to learn, and at the age of 14, he finished two books, Slavic Grammar and arithmetic.

Mikhail Lomonosov left home at the age of 19, carrying these two beloved enlightening books, because of the abuse of his stepmother. He came to Moscow on foot, pretending to be the son of a priest, got into a language school and went to school from place to place. He went to Germany and Petersburg and studied literature, linguistics, metallurgy, mineralogy, mathematics, physics, chemistry and hydraulic engineering. He not only came into contact with various sciences, but also proficient in German, French, Slavonic, Latin and Greek. During his study, the fisherman's child tried every possible way to study, was ridiculed by aristocratic children, and endured hunger and cold, but he finally emerged from his cocoon and became a great scholar with everlasting history.

Lomonosov has made a wide range of research achievements, including chemistry, astronomy, physics, geology, metallurgy, mineralogy and hydraulics; he is also accomplished in history, linguistics and philosophy; he has written many famous selections of poems. He has studied Russian literature and Slavic language rhetoric; studied the rhythm and rhythm of poetry creation; published on Russian Poetry. He has written works such as rhetoric and Russian Grammar, which have laid the foundation for the promotion of Russian with a long tradition and the unified standardization of Russian language. After he was elected as an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1740, he began fruitful scientific research activities.

Lomonosov's most important contribution is in chemistry. It is now widely known that "burning" or "iron rust" is a very common oxidation phenomenon, but in the Lomonosov era three hundred years ago, the "phthalate theory" was very popular, and it was believed that "fire" was a substance made up of innumerable fine particles. they can be free, they can form compounds with other substances, and they can gather to form flames. When these small particles are dispersed in the air, they give people a sense of heat, and the element made up of these particles is "fuel". At that time, some famous chemists also believed in the theory of phthalate.

Lomonosov once did a famous experiment to refute the "phthalate theory" at that time. He prepared three special glass containers, which were filled with lead, copper and iron shavings, sealed and heated. As a result, the lead melted, a grayish-yellow film appeared on the surface, the copper shavings turned into a dark brown powder, and the iron filings blackened. According to phlogiene, it is phthalate that changes them after heating or burning. Now Lomonosov asks, has the "phlogiene" gone into the container? Are they combined with metal? If you enter the container, the mass of the container should be increased, but the weighing results show that the mass of these containers has not changed, while the metal ash is heavier than before.

So Lomonosov concluded: "it is an irrefutable fact that the metal has not combined with the 'phthalate' because the mass of all containers has not changed. However, there is a certain amount of air inside the container, and it must be the combination of metal and air particles that increases the quality of the metal. As much air combines with the metal, the metal should be increased as much as it is!" His experiment laid a good foundation for Lavasil to overthrow phlogiene, and the success of this experiment was about 18 years earlier than Lavasil's experiment.

Lomonosov was the first chemist to measure the relationship between chemical mass with a balance. He was the first to use chemical experiments to discover and prove the conservation of mass. After a large number of experiments, Lomonosov concluded that "the total mass of all the substances involved in the reaction is equal to the total mass of all the reaction products."

On February 16, 1748, Lomonosov disclosed the results of his experiment for the first time in a letter to Leonard Euler, an academician of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences, and expounded his views on the conservation of mass. "all the changes that have taken place in nature, it's like this: how much one thing loses, how much another gets. Therefore, if one object adds a number of substances, another object is bound to lose some substances. Because this is a law of universal significance, it should also apply to the laws of motion: if an object causes another object to move by its own power, then the momentum lost by the former is used to push. It must be equal to the momentum gained when the latter is pushed. " What an incisive exposition this is and what an advanced thought it is! Lomonosov later consolidated the letter in a paper entitled "on the reflectivity of solids and liquids", which was published on July 5, 1760. The incisive ideas in this paper are very groundbreaking, it should be said that this is the embryonic form of the law of conservation of mass and the law of conservation of energy, which is the cornerstone of modern chemical research. Unfortunately, the idea did not attract people's attention because it was too advanced.

Lomonosov also made great contributions in physics and astronomy. On May 26, 1761, while observing the transit of Venus, he was the first to discover the existence of an atmosphere on Venus. He was the first person to study and record the condensation of mercury. He also presciently put forward the theory of the motion of gas molecules. He believed that the air was filled with tiny particles, and the impact of these particles on the wall created the pressure of the air. In 1741, his idea was further extended to all matter. In a paper entitled "the elemental theory of chemistry", he said: "the smallest particles that make up matter are the smallest particles that can no longer be divided." he believes that "all matter is made up of the smallest particles. If matter is made up of the same particles, this is simple matter; if matter is made up of several different particles, they are compounds. The nature of matter is not accidental, it depends on the nature of the particles that make up the object. " In 1748, he replaced "smallest particles" more explicitly with "atoms", "particles" and "molecules". He also has an incisive view on the thermal phenomenon, which holds that "heat" is a form of movement of matter, which is represented by the movement of particles within the matter, which essentially gives the most incisive explanation of the thermal phenomenon. it lays a foundation for the development of the theory of thermodynamic dynamics.

Lomonosov was also an educator. With the support of Yekaterina II, he founded Moscow University, which was later named after him. He drafted the syllabus himself, abolished the theology course unprecedentedly, introduced the advanced experience of foreign science teaching, strongly advocated the experiment-based chemistry teaching, and created the first chemistry laboratory in Russia. The talented Lomonosov is also an excellent artist. The picture below shows his large-scale painted mosaic "Battle of Pertava".

On April 30, 1760, the Swedish Academy of Sciences elected Lomonosov as an honorary academician, praising him as "profound knowledge, outstanding achievements, and long-standing academic reputation." at present, he is committed to the improvement and exposition of various sciences, especially physics, with diligent scholarship and remarkable achievements. it is a great honor for the Royal Swedish Academy to work closely with this rare genius. " The famous Russian philosopher and writer Billingsky commented on Lomonosov more vividly: "Lomonosov is like the aurora borealis from the Arctic Ocean. It is dazzling, dazzling and magnificent." He proved to people that a person can adapt to any environment and any situation, proved that genius can overcome all the barriers set up by misfortune, and finally proved to people that the Russians are capable of all magnificent and magnificent undertakings. "

Lomonosov's thought is far ahead of the times, and his scientific discoveries and writings are of epoch-making significance not only in Russia, but also in the history of science and culture in the world. Some people make a very appropriate analogy that his position in Russia is like that of Galileo in Italy, Newton in England, Descartes in France, Leibniz in Germany and Franklin in the United States. For this reason, people call him "Peter the Great in the history of science" in Russia. Peter the Great was Lomonosov's most respected figure. In 1760, Lomonosov began to write a Russian history book about Peter the Great, but failed to finish it because of his death in 1765.

The Tomb of Lomonosov built at the Alexandria Nevsky Monastery in Petersburg Source: 365 days in the History of Science, slightly redacted by: Wei Fengwen Wu Yi Editor: Zhang Runxin this article comes from the Wechat official account: Origin Reading (ID:tupydread), by Wei Fengwen, Wu Yi, Editor: Zhang Runxin

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