Historical figure · Pearson Edexcel International GCSE revision on Incandio
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac
Who Went Up to Measure the Air · Chemist · 1778–1850
Who went up in a balloon to seven thousand metres to find out whether the air is different up there, found that gases combine with one another in simple whole-number ratios by volume, measured how much of every salt a hundred parts of water will hold at every temperature, and never accepted the explanation his own volume law was crying out for.
Defend these ideas against Gay-Lussac
Incandio is a free revision platform for the Pearson Edexcel International GCSE, and on it a topic counts as mastered only once you have learned it, proved it in questions, taught it back and defended it against the person with the strongest claim on it. Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac is that person for 3 topics on the course:
- Solubility and Solubility Curves — Chemistry
- Concentration and Gas Volumes — Chemistry
- Titrations — Chemistry
Who was Gay-Lussac?
Gay-Lussac was born at Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat in 1778 and educated at the École Polytechnique, entering the circle of Claude Louis Berthollet at Arcueil. In 1802 he established what is now usually credited to Charles: that all gases expand by the same fraction of their volume for the same rise in temperature. In 1804 he made two balloon ascents, the second alone and to about seven thousand metres, a height not exceeded for half a century, to test whether the composition of the air and the strength of terrestrial magnetism change with altitude; he brought samples down and showed that the air is the same. In 1808 came the result that carries his name: when gases react, the volumes that combine, and the volume of any gaseous product, stand to one another in simple whole-number ratios. Two volumes of hydrogen take one of oxygen; one volume of nitrogen takes three of hydrogen. Amedeo Avogadro explained this in 1811 by supposing that equal volumes contain equal numbers of molecules and that the elementary gases go about as paired atoms — and Gay-Lussac, like Dalton and like almost everyone else, did not take the explanation up; it was not settled until Cannizzaro pressed it at Karlsruhe in 1860, ten years after Gay-Lussac's death. He worked on much besides: with Thénard he isolated boron in 1808; in 1813 he established that the substance obtained from seaweed was an element and named it iodine; in 1815 he prepared cyanogen. He published extensive measurements of the solubility of salts at different temperatures and presented them as curves. And in the service of the state assay office he developed the graduated apparatus and the technique of running one measured solution into another until an indicator changes — the direct ancestor of the titration performed in every school laboratory.
Major achievements
- Established in 1802 that all gases expand equally with the same rise in temperature
- Ascended by balloon to about 7,000 metres in 1804 and showed the composition of the air is unchanged
- Found in 1808 that gases combine in simple whole-number ratios by volume
- Isolated boron with Thénard in 1808
- Established iodine as an element and named it, in 1813
Life in brief
- 1778 — Born at Saint-Léonard: Son of a royal official.
- 1802 — The expansion of gases: All gases expand alike with heat.
- 1804 — The balloon ascents: To 7,000 metres, alone, for samples of air.
- 1808 — Combining volumes: Gases react in simple ratios by volume.
- 1813 — Iodine named: Established as an element, against Davy.
- 1819 — Solubility measured: Salts across the range of temperature.
- 1832 — The silver assay: Volumetric analysis for the state.
- 1850 — Dies at Paris: His volume law still unexplained by him.
Explore the life of Gay-Lussac — five chapters
- The Terror, the Polytechnique and Arcueil — A new institution for a new republic
- Seven Thousand Metres, Alone — September 1804
- Simple Ratios by Volume — 1808, and a result whose explanation he refused
- Iodine, Boron and a Race With Davy — Working under wartime blockade
- The Burette — The state assay office, and the apparatus on every school bench
Read the five-chapter life of Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac →
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