His father, Anthony Gay, son of a doctor, was a lawyer and prosecutor and worked as a judge in Noblat Bridge.[6] Father of two sons and three daughters, he owned much of the Lussac village and began to add the name of this hamlet to his name, following a custom of theAncien Régime. Towards the year 1803, father and son formally adopted the name Gay-Lussac.[7] During theRevolution, under theLaw of Suspects, his father, former king's attorney, was imprisoned in Saint Léonard from 1793 to 1794.
Gay-Lussac received his early education at the hands of theCatholic Abbey of Bourdeix.[8] In the care of the Abbot of Dumonteil, he began his education in Paris, finally entering theÉcole Polytechnique in 1798.
Three years later, Gay-Lussac transferred to theÉcole des Ponts et Chaussées, and shortly afterward was assigned toC. L. Berthollet as his assistant. In 1804 he was appointed répétiteur (demonstrator) toAntoine François Fourcroy at the École Polytechnique, whom he succeeded in 1809 as professor of chemistry. From 1809 to 1832, he was also the professor of physics at theSorbonne, a post which he only resigned for the chair of chemistry at theJardin des Plantes. In 1821, he was elected a foreign member of theRoyal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1831 he was elected to represent Haute-Vienne in the chamber of deputies, and in 1839 he entered the chamber of peers. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1832.[9]
Gay-Lussac married Geneviève-Marie-Joseph Rojot in 1809. He had first met her when she worked as a linen draper's shop assistant; he noticed she was studying a chemistry textbook under the counter, which led to their acquaintance. The couple had five children, of whom the eldest (Jules) became a student ofJustus Liebig in Giessen. Some publications by Jules are mistaken as his father's today since they share the same first initial (J. Gay-Lussac).
Gay-Lussac had a reputation as one of the greatest European scientists of his day, well justified by his innumerable discoveries in both chemistry and physics. The restored royalty made him a Peer of France, although he worked politically with the anti-clerical party. He was closely associated withFrançois Arago.
1802 – Gay-Lussac first published the law that at constant pressure, the volume of any gas increases in proportion to its absolute temperature. Since in his paper announcing the law he cited earlier unpublished work on this subject byJacques Charles, the law is usually calledCharles's law, though some sources use the expressionGay-Lussac's law. This law was independently and nearly simultaneously stated byJohn Dalton.
1804 – He andJean-Baptiste Biot made a hydrogen-balloon ascent; a second ascent the same year by Gay-Lussac alone attained a height of 7,016 metres (23,018 ft) in an early investigation of theEarth's atmosphere. He wanted to collect air samples at different heights to record differences in temperature and moisture.
1805 – Together with his friend and scientific collaboratorAlexander von Humboldt, he discovered that the composition of the atmosphere does not change with decreasing pressure (increasing altitude). They also discovered that water is formed by two parts of hydrogen and one part of oxygen (by volume).
1810 – In collaboration withLouis Jacques Thénard, he developed a method for quantitative elemental organic combustion analysis by measuring the CO2 and H2O evolved when an organic compound is fully oxidized by potassium chlorate. He also summarised the equation of alcoholicfermentation.
1811 – He recognizediodine as a new element, described its properties, and suggested the nameiode.[10]
1815 – He synthesizedcyanogen, determined its empirical formula, and named it.
1824 – He developed an improved version of theburette that included a side arm, and coined the terms "pipette" and "burette" in an 1824 paper about the standardization of indigo solutions.[11]
Gay-Lussac, L. J.; von Humboldt, A. (1805). "Expériences sur les moyens eudiométriques et sur la proportion des principes constituans de l'atmosphère".Journal de Physique.60.
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