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REGNAULT, HENRI VICTOR (1810-1878)

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Originally appearing in Volume V23, Page 46 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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REGNAULT, See also:HENRI See also:VICTOR (1810-1878) , See also:French chemist and physicist, was See also:born on the 21st of See also:July 1810 at See also:Aix-la-Chapelle. His See also:early See also:life was a struggle with poverty. When a boy he went to See also:Paris and obtained a situation in a large drapery See also:establishment, where he remained, occupying every spare See also:hour in study, until he was in his twentieth See also:year. Then he entered the 1 See also:cole Polytechnique, and passed in 1832 to the Ecole See also:des Mines, where he See also:developed an aptitude for experimental See also:chemistry. A few years later he was appointed to a professorship of chemistry at See also:Lyons. His most important contribution to organic chemistry was a See also:series of researches, begun in 1835, on the haloid and other derivatives of unsaturated See also:hydrocarbons. He also studied the alkaloids and organic acids, introduced a See also:classification of the metals according to the facility with which they or their sulphides are oxidized by See also:steam at high temperatures, and effected a comparison of the chemical See also:composition of atmospheric See also:air from all parts of the See also:world. In 184o he was recalled to Paris by his See also:appointment to the See also:chair of chemistry in the & See also:pie Polytechnique; at the same See also:time he was elected a member of the Academie des Sciences, in the chemical See also:section, in See also:room of P. J. Robiquet (178o-184o); and in the following year he be-came See also:professor of physics in the See also:College de See also:France, there succeeding P. L. See also:Dulong, his old See also:master, and in many respectshis See also:model.

From this time Regnault devoted almost all his See also:

attention to See also:practical physics; but in 1847 he published a four-See also:volume See also:treatise on Chemistry which has been translated into many See also:languages. Regnault executed a careful redetermination of the specific heats of all the elements obtainable, and of many compounds—solids, liquids and gases. He investigated the expansibility of gases by See also:heat, determining the coefficient for air as o•oo3665, and showed that, contrary to previous See also:opinion, no two gases had precisely the same See also:rate of expansion. By numerous delicate experiments he proved that See also:Boyle's See also:law is only approximately true, and that those gases which are most readily liquefied diverge most widely from obedience to it. He studied the whole subject of See also:thermometry critically; he introduced the use of an accurate air-thermometer, and compared its indications with those of a See also:mercurial thermometer, determining the See also:absolute See also:dilatation of See also:mercury by heat as a step in the See also:process. He also paid attention to hygrometry and devised a See also:hygrometer in which a cooled See also:metal See also:surface is used for the deposition of moisture. In 1854 he was appointed to succeed J. J. Ebelmen (1814-1852) as director of the See also:porcelain manufactory at Sevres. He carried on his See also:great See also:research on the expansion of gases in the laboratory at Sevres, but all the results of his latest See also:work were destroyed during the Franco-See also:German See also:War, in which also his son Henri (noticed above) was killed. Regnault never recovered from the See also:double See also:blow, and, although he lived until the 19th of See also:January 1878, his scientific labours ended in 1872. He wrote more than eighty papers on scientific subjects, and he made important researches in See also:conjunction with other workers.

His greatest work, bearing on the practical treatment of steam-engines, forms vol. xxi. of the Memoires de l'Academie des Sciences.

End of Article: REGNAULT, HENRI VICTOR (1810-1878)

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