Chemistry (although it applies to lots of other things, as well)

Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed.     Antoine Lavoisier

Father of modern chemistry and French nobleman...gained the first title through discovering hydrogen and oxygen, helping to construct the metric system and a systematic chemical nomenclature, and drafting a first version of the law of conservation of mass; the second led to his death by guillotine during the Reign of Terror, when Jean-Paul Marat accused him of 'selling watered-down tobacco'.  Crappy Marat.