section_path: Biography/Final days and execution/Blinking experiment
section_name: Blinking experiment
paragraph_text: Blinking experiment
  
  An apocryphal story exists regarding Lavoisier's execution in which the scientist blinked his eyes to demonstrate that the head retained some consciousness after being severed. Some variants of the story include Joseph-Louis Lagrange as being the scientist to observe and record Lavoisier's blinking. This story was not recorded in contemporary accounts of Lavoisier's death, and the execution site was too removed from the public for Lagrange to have viewed Lavoisier's alleged experiment. The story likely originated in a 1990s Discovery Channel documentary about guillotines and then subsequently spread online, becoming what one source describes as an urban legend.