Joseph Gay-Lussac

Joseph Gay-Lussac

Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac was a french chemist and physicist. He was born on December 6, 1778 and died May 9, 1850 at the age of 71 in Paris, France.

From his first major program of research in 1801–1802, he concluded that equal volumes of all gases expand equally with the same increase in temperature: this conclusion is usually called “Charles's law” in honor of Jacques Charles.

Gay-Lussac’s own career as a professor of physics and chemistry began at the École Polytechnique.

Gay-Lussac was also interested in studying the atmosphere. He made a hot-air balloon filled with Hydrogen, along with Jean Baptiste Biot

Joseph's father as Antoine Gay and his mother was named Leonarde Bouriquet.

Joseph had three sisters and one brother., two daughters and three sons. His wife was named Geneviere-Marie-Joseph-Rojot.

His earliest investigations led to the formulation of the law, sometimes credited to his countryman J. A. C. Charles, that all gases expand by equal amounts when subjected to equal increments in temperature.

Another important discovery that Gay-Lussac made was with his friend Alexander von Humboldt. They found out that water is made of two parts of hydrogen and one part oxygen

He was the first to isolate the element boron, winning a rare victory over his scientific rival, Sir Humphrey Davy. He also introduced the terms pipette and burette.

Gay-Lussac enjoyed a high reputation for his exacting research in many areas of chemistry and for his novel techniques of chemical analysis, particularly volumetric analysis.