Joseph Louis Gay-Lsac | Science History Instute

Contents:

• JOSEPH-LOUIS GAY-LSAC
• JOSEPH LOUIS GAY-LSAC
• JOSEPH GAY-LSAC SUMMARY
• JOSEPH LOUIS GAY-LSAC
• LOUIS JOSEPH GAY LSAC: BGRAPHY, NTRIBUTNS, WORKS, PHRAS

JOSEPH-LOUIS GAY-LSAC

Joseph-Louis Gay-Lsac, (born December 6, 1778, Sat-Léonard--Noblat, France—died May 9, 1850, Paris), French chemist and physicist who pneered vtigatns to the behavur of gas, tablished new techniqu for analysis, and ma notable advanc applied chemistry. Gay-Lsac was the elst son of a provcial lawyer and royal official who lost his posn wh the French Revolutn of 1789.

Early his schoolg, Gay-Lsac acquired an tert science, and his mathematil abily enabled him to pass the entrance examatn for the newly found Éle Polytechnique, where stunts’ expens were paid by the state. Gay-Lsac proved to be an exemplary stunt durg his studi there om 1797 to 1800. The society’s first volume of memoirs, published 1807, clud ntributns om Gay-Lsac.

At Arcueil, Berthollet was joed by the ement mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace, who engaged Gay-Lsac experiments on pillary orr to study short-range forc. Gay-Lsac’s first publitn (1802), however, was on the thermal expansn of gas.

JOSEPH LOUIS GAY-LSAC

Charl as “Charl’s law, ” was the first of several regulari the behavur of matter that Gay-Lsac tablished. ” Of the laws Gay-Lsac disvered, he remas bt known for his law of the bg volum of gas (1808).

Gay-Lsac’s approach to the study of matter was nsistently volumetric rather than gravimetric, ntrast to that of his English ntemporary John Dalton. Another example of Gay-Lsac’s fondns for volumetric rats appeared an 1810 vtigatn to the posn of vegetable substanc performed wh his iend Louis-Jacqu Thenard. As a young man, Gay-Lsac participated dangero explos for scientific purpos.

In a followg solo flight, Gay-Lsac reached 7, 016 metr (more than 23, 000 feet), thereby settg a rerd for the hight balloon flight that remaed unbroken for a half-century. In 1805–06, amid the Napoleonic wars, Gay-Lsac embarked upon a European tour wh another Arcueil lleague, the Pssian explorer Alexanr von Humboldt. Gay-Lsac’s rearch together wh the patronage of Berthollet and the Arcueil group helped him to ga membership the prtig First Class of the Natnal Instute (later the Amy of Scienc) at an early stage his reer (1806).

JOSEPH GAY-LSAC SUMMARY

Three years prevly Gay-Lsac had been appoted to the junr post of répétr at the Éle Polytechnique where, 1810, he received a profsorship chemistry that clud a substantial salary. Gay-Lsac’s appotment to the faculty of the Éle Polytechnique 1804 provid him wh laboratory facili the centre of Paris.

Rivalry between Gay-Lsac and Davy reached a climax over the de experiments Davy rried out durg an extraordary vis to Paris November 1813, at a time when France was at war wh Bra. Gay-Lsac prented a much more plete study of de a long memoir prented to the Natnal Instute on Augt 1, 1814, and subsequently published the Annal chimie.

JOSEPH LOUIS GAY-LSAC

In 1815 Gay-Lsac experimentally monstrated that pssic acid was simply hydrocyanic acid, a pound of rbon, hydrogen, and nrogen, and he also isolated the pound cyanogen [(CN)2 or C2N2]. Begng 1816, Gay-Lsac served as the jot edor of the Annal chimie et physique, a posn he shared wh his former Arcueil lleague François Arago. Gay-Lsac also performed experiments to terme the strength of alholic liquors.

Still, Gay-Lsac did not pe cricism om lleagu for turng away om the path of “pure” science and toward the path of fancial ga. Gay-Lsac was a key figure the velopment of the new science of volumetric analysis. Prevly a few c trials had been rried out to timate the strength of chlore solutns bleachg, but Gay-Lsac troduced a scientific rigour to chemil quantifitn and vised important modifitns to apparat.

LOUIS JOSEPH GAY LSAC: BGRAPHY, NTRIBUTNS, WORKS, PHRAS

The prcipl of volumetric analysis uld be tablished only through Gay-Lsac’s theoretil and practil geni but, once tablished, the analysis self uld be rried out by a junr assistant wh brief trag.