In the late 1700's, Jacques Charles discovered the relationship between volume and temperature in gases keeping pressure constant. He used the Kelvin scale; however, the Kelvin scale was not developed by William Thompson ( Lord Kelvin) until 1848. Did Charles first attempt to use Celsius in the derivation and then realize he would need to use a different scale. What is the background?
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1$\begingroup$ @Mauricio : my understanding is there was no original publication by Charles. $\endgroup$– akhmeteliCommented Nov 21 at 8:30
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1 Answer
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Short description: There is no evidence that Jacques Charles ever used Celsius or kelvins for his experiment, the Kelvin scale was invented much later.
Charles performed some experiments but did no publish them. Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac published a work on the dilation of gases in 1802. He compiled several experiments in the second section (Article 2), including Charles'. He leaves Charles' experiment for last, stating (p.. 157)
Avant d'aller plus loin, je dois prévenir que quoique j'eusse reconnu un grand nombre de fois que les gaz oxigène, azote, hydrogène et acide carbonique, et l'air atmosphérique se dilatent également depuis 0° jusqu'a 80°, le cit. Charles avait remarqué depuis 15 ans la même propriété dans ces gaz; mais n'ayant jamais publié ses résultats, ce par le plus grand hasard que je les ai connus.
[Google translation:] Before going further, I must warn that although I had recognized a great number of times that the gases oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and carbonic acid, and atmospheric air expand equally from 0° to 80°, the cit. Charles had noticed for 15 years the same property in these gases; but having never published his results, it was by the greatest chance that I was made aware of them.
Then, Gay-Lussac explains Charles' experiment stating
Le gaz qu'il voulait mettre dans l'expérience était renfermé dans le reservoir d'un baromètre à la temperature 0°, sous la pression de 28 pouces de mercure.
[Google translation:] The gas he wanted to put into the experiment was enclosed in the reservoir of a barometer at a temperature of 0°, under a pressure of 28 inches of mercury.
Throughout the document Gay-Lussac refers to 0° as the temperature of frozen water. However, throughout the section (Article 2) the scale used in the experiments is divided in 80 divisions up to boiling water which means that they were using the Réaumur scale. The centigrade scale (Celsius) was formalized over the Réaumur scale in 1794 in France. This convention happened after Charles' experiment. Gay-Lussac in Article 4 when reporting his results, he reports using both in thermometer scale with 80 divisions (Réaumur) and another scale with 100 divisions (Celsius).
Gay-Lussac does not extrapolate his laws below 0°C, stating that for very low temperatures gases liquify. So he did not conclude anything about absolute 0 temperature. For earlier scientists that did attempt to project their scale down, see this entry from Encyclopedia Brittanica 1911 "Cold".
References
- Gay-Lussac, "Recherches sur la dilatation des gazes et des vapeurs", Annales de chimie, pp. 137–175 (1802) (Gallica link)
- Commission temporaire des poids & mesures républicaines, "Instruction sur les mesures déduites de la grandeur de la terre : uniformes pour toute la République, et sur les calculs relatifs a leur division décimale", pp. 202–203 (1794)
