In 1804 Gay-Lussac made several daring ascents of over 7,000 meters above sea level in hydrogen-filled balloons-a feat not equaled for another 50 years-that allowed him to investigate other aspects of gases. 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, who had arrived at nearly the same conclusion 15 years earlier but had not published it. He shared the interest of Lavoisier and others in the quantitative study of the properties of gases. Science History Institute Early Investigations of Gases Gay-Lussac’s own career as a professor of physics and chemistry began at the École Polytechnique. There his mentors included Pierre Simon de Laplace and Claude Louis Berthollet, among other scientists converted by Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier to oxygen chemistry. Joseph, however, benefited from the new order when he was selected to attend the École Polytechnique, an institution of the French Revolution designed to create scientific and technical leadership, especially for the military. His comfortable existence as the privately tutored son of a well-to-do lawyer was disrupted by political and social upheavals: his tutor fled, and his father was imprisoned. Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778–1850) grew up during both the French and Chemical Revolutions. His daring ascents in hydrogen-filled balloons were key to his investigations. While one is generally attributed to a fellow countryman, the other is well known as Gay-Lussac’s law. French chemist Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac proposed two fundamental laws of gases in the early 19th century.
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