Joseph gay lussac

He was the eldest of five children of Antoine Gay, lawyer and procureur royal at St. His father, to distinguish himself from others with the surname Gay in the Limoges region, had begun to call himself Gay-Lussac after the family property near St. The comfortable social and economic position of the family was rudely disturbed by the Revolution.

In Septemberwhen Gay-Lussac was fourteen, his father was arrested as a suspect. Joseph Louis was sent to a small private boarding school in Paris, where his lessons included mathematics and science. The opening of the Ecole Polytechnique provided a splendid opportunity for an able boy without fortune.

Gay-Lussac was successful in joseph gay lussac competitive entrance examination and was admitted on 27 December In the winter of —, the chemist Berthollet, impressed by the ability of the young man, took him to his country house at Arcueil as an assistant. On 31 March he was given the honorary title of professor of practical chemistry, but upon the death of Fourcroy he was appointed to succeed him as professor of chemistry 17 February On 8 December Gay-Lussac obtained the coveted place of member of the first class of the Institute physics section.

He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in, and but resigned on a matter of principle in On 7 Marchhaving earlier refused a title from Charles Xhe was honored by Louis Philippe with nomination to the upper house. There was conflicting evidence about the expansive properties of different gases when heated.

Gay-Lussac, Joseph Louis

Gay-Lussac improved on most earlier work by taking precautions to exclude water vapor from his apparatus and to use dry gases. After examining a variety of gases, including several soluble in water, and repeating each experiment several times, he concluded that equal volumes of all gases expand equally with the same increase of temperature.

Similar research was carried out independently by Dalton at about the same time. About J. Charles had recognized the equal expansion of several gases but had never bothered to publish his findings. Gay-Lussac made an ascent in a hydrogen balloon with Biot on 24 August They also carried long wires to test the electricity of different parts of the atmosphere.

Another objective was to collect a sample of air from a high altitude to compare its composition with that of air at ground level. Gay-Lussac made a second ascent, on 16 Septemberbut this time by himself, in order to lessen the weight of the balloon and thus reach a greater height.

He was able to repeat observations of pressure, temperature, and humidity and also make magnetic measurements. He had taken two evacuated flasks, which he opened to collect samples of air when he had attained an altitude of over 6, meters. His subsequent analysis of these samples showed that the proportion of oxygen was identical with that in joseph gay lussac air.

Gay-Lussac reached a calculated height of 7, meters above sea levela record not equaled for another half century. Nearly ten years older than Gay-Lussac, Humboldt already had an international reputation as an explorer; yet he learned something about precision in scientific research from Gay-Lussac, who in turn had his horizons broadened by his German friend.

The resulting contraction permitted an estimate of the proportion of oxygen in the sample. This method obviously presupposed a knowledge of the relative proportions by volume in which hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water; one of the principal objects of the work of Gay-Lussac and Humboldt was to determine the proportion with the greatest possible accuracy.

They also determined the limiting proportions for an explosion to be possible. After carrying out a large number of experiments with an excess of first one gas and then the other, they calculated—making allowance for a slight impurity in the test oxygen—that parts by volume of oxygen combined with Gay-Lussac clearly expressed his preference for volumes, pointing out that the presence of moisture, which would be difficult to estimate gravimetrically, did not alter the volumetric ratio.

During this journey Gay-Lussac carried out various chemical analyses. Their joseph gay lussac object, however, was to record the magnetic elemertti at different points along their route. To obtain the magnetic intensity, the period of oscillation of a magnetized needle was determined.