10 Times Well-Loved Scientists Were Total Jerks

Antoine Lavoisier, the much loved father of modern chemistry and proponent of the metric system that is so loved by the scientific world (trying to conduct complex experiments in feet, inches, pounds and ounces? No thanks), was, unfortunately, a bit of a jerk.

This is probably to be expected as he also happened to be a wealthy aristocrat and a ruthless merchant who thought nothing of raising money from an already downtrodden pre-revolutionary French public. As an administrator for the aristocratic council in Paris, Lavoisier came up with a brilliant scheme to raise some lovely taxes - he built a dirty great wall around Paris and refused entry to traders until they paid his tax.

Yes, it's true that he did this because so many people were doing all they could to avoid taxation, which is obviously naughty and against the law. But, by and large, this was because they preferred feeding and clothing their families to paying for the king's brand new rumpus room. With the new wall in place, traders had only two options: Pay the tax or take their business elsewhere.

Unfortunately for Lavoisier, this was not a time to be antagonising the common man. As the air became thick with talk of revolution, Lavoisier's future prospects took a bit of a dive when he was accused of selling "watered down" tobacco. This was enough to earn him a one-way trip to the guillotine.