Gay lussac biography

Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac was a French chemist and physicist.
Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac was a French chemist and physicist who pioneered investigations into the behaviour of gases, established new techniques for analysis.
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778–1850) grew up during both the French and Chemical Revolutions.

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Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac

Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (December 6, 1778 – May 9, 1850) was a French chemist and physicist. He is known mostly for two laws related to gases, and for his work on alcohol-water mixtures, which led to the degrees Gay-Lussac used to measure alcoholic beverages in many countries.

Biography

Gay-Lussac was born at Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat, in the department of Haute-Vienne. He received his early education at home and in 1794 was sent to Paris to prepare for the École Polytechnique after his father was arrested, into which he was admitted at the end of 1797. Three years later he transferred to the École des Ponts et Chaussées, and shortly afterwards was assigned to C. L. Berthollet as his assistant. In 1802 he was appointed demonstrator to A. F. Fourcroy at the École Polytechnique, where subsequently (1809) he became professor of chemistry. From 1808 to 1832 he was professor of physics at the Sorbonne, a post which he only resigned for the chair of chemistry at the Jardin des Plantes. In 1831 he was elected to represent Haute-Vie

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Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (December 6, 1778 – May 9, 1850) was a Frenchchemist and physicist whose discovery of the law of combining volumes of gases in chemical reactions paved the way for our understanding of molecules and atoms. He also demonstrated that different gases expand at the same rate when subject to an increase in temperature at constant pressure. He was a co-discoverer of the element boron. His work demonstrated his talent for uncovering the principles that underlie outward phenomena, and it had a lasting effect on the history of chemistry and physics. Moreover, he was a great teacher who was much sought after.

Biography

Gay-Lussac was born at Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat, in the department of Haute-Vienne. Of the three daughters and two sons of Antoine Gay-Lussac, he was the eldest male child. Gay-Lussac's father was an officer of the king, and his grandfather was a medical doctor. In 1789, at the beginning of the French Revolution, his parents found it necessary to keep Gay-Lussac at home, where he received his early education. But by 1795, the Reign of Terror

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Scientist of the Day - Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac

Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, a French chemist, was born Dec. 6, 1778. Gay-Lussac is well known to modern chemists for two laws, one relating the volume of a gas to its temperature (volume increases linearly with temperature), and the second, called the law of combining volumes, which states that when two gases combine, their volumes are in the ratios of small whole numbers. This latter law, announced in 1808, demonstrated, for example, that when one combines hydrogen and oxygen to form water, it takes exactly two volumes of hydrogen for every one volume of oxygen. The law of combining volumes could be used to support John Dalton's atomic theory, published the very same year, for if water consists of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen, then one might well expect that you would need two volumes of hydrogen for every one of oxygen (assuming that equal volumes of gases contain equal numbers of particles, and Amadeo Avogadro would offer this up as his own law, Avogadro's hypothesis, in 1811).

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