science · 18 July 1838 · 186 years ago
death
Died 18 Jul 1838 at age 53 (born 12 Feb 1785).
French chemist and physicist who helped formulate the Dulong-Petit law of specific heats (1819), which proved useful in determining atomic weights. He began in a medical career, but turned to botany and then chemistry. In 1811, he discovered nitrogen trichloride, losing a finger and the sight of one eye when it spontaneously exploded. Jointly with Alexis Petit (1815-20), they measured the specific heat of elements and related them to atomic weights. They discovered their new law that specific heat times atomic weight of an element is a constant, about six calories per gram atom, the same for all solid elements.
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