Henry Cavendish FRS (10 October 1731 – 24 February 1810) was a
British natural philosopher,
scientist, and an important experimental and theoretical
chemist and
physicist. Cavendish is noted for his discovery of
hydrogen or what he called "inflammable air". He described the density of inflammable air, which formed water on combustion, in a 1766 paper "On Factitious Airs".
Antoine Lavoisier later reproduced Cavendish's experiment and gave the element its name.