Joseph louis gay-lussac timeline

French chemist and physicist (1778–1850)

Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (gay-LOO-sak,^[1][2]GAY-lə-SAK,^[3][4]French:[ʒozɛflwiɡɛlysak]; 6 December 1778 – 9 May 1850) was a Frenchchemist and physicist.

He is known mostly for his discovery that water is made of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen by volume (with Alexander von Humboldt), for two laws related to gases, and for his work on alcohol–water mixtures, which led to the degrees Gay-Lussac used to measure alcoholic beverages in many countries.

Biography

Gay-Lussac was born at Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat in the present-day department of Haute-Vienne.^[5]

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 the Ancien Ré