
Charles's Law, which describes how gases expand when heated, was formulated by Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac in 1802, but he credited it to the unpublished work of Jacques Charles, a French inventor, scientist, mathematician, and balloonist. Charles's work in this area was conducted around 1787, and he is known for his experiments on how the volume of gases depends on temperature. Charles's law is a special case of the general gas law and can be derived from the kinetic theory of gases.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Name | Jacques Alexandre César Charles |
| Birth Date | 12 November 1746 |
| Birth Place | Beaugency, France |
| Death Date | 7 April 1823 |
| Profession | Inventor, scientist, mathematician, balloonist, physicist |
| Known For | First crewed hydrogen-filled gas balloon, Charles's Law |
| Charles's Law | The volume occupied by a fixed amount of gas is directly proportional to its absolute temperature if the pressure remains constant |
| Charles's Law Formulated In | 1787 |
| Charles's Law Formulated By | Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac |
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What You'll Learn

Jacques Charles: a French inventor, scientist, mathematician, and balloonist
Jacques Alexandre César Charles, born on November 12, 1746, in Beaugency, France, was a French inventor, scientist, mathematician, and balloonist. He demonstrated intellectual curiosity and aptitude in mathematics from a young age, which led him to Paris in search of better opportunities. Initially working in finance, Charles transitioned to science, inspired in part by his interactions with figures like Benjamin Franklin.
Charles is known for his pioneering efforts in ballooning. He became the first person to fly in a hydrogen-filled balloon in December 1783, with Nicolas-Louis Robert as his co-pilot. They ascended to a height of about 1,800 feet (550 m) in a 380-cubic-metre, hydrogen-filled balloon. Their use of hydrogen for lift led to this type of gas balloon being named a Charlière. Charles also built one of the first hydrogen balloons with the Robert brothers, Nicolas and Anne-Jean, in 1783, and made several flights, rising more than a mile in altitude.
Charles studied and experimented with hydrogen, exploring the properties and nature of gases. In 1787, he refined the earlier work of Robert Boyle by demonstrating with hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen that the volume of gases under constant pressure increases in direct proportion to temperature. This empirical relation, known as Charles's Law, describes the direct relationship between gas volume and temperature. However, Charles's discovery remained unpublished during his lifetime due to his lack of formal scientific education. It was later placed on a sound empirical footing by the chemist Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac, who gave credit to Charles.
In addition to his work with gases, Charles invented or improved several scientific instruments, including a hydrometer and reflecting goniometer. He also improved the Gravesand heliostat and Fahrenheit's aerometer. For his contributions to science, Charles was elected as a member of the Académie Royale des Sciences in Paris in 1795 and became a professor of physics. He died in Paris on April 7, 1823.
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Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac: formulated Charles' Law in 1802
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac was a French chemist and physicist who discovered Charles' Law in 1802. Gay-Lussac's discovery states that if the volume of a gas is kept constant and heat is applied, the pressure of the gas will increase. This is due to the gases having more kinetic energy, causing them to hit the walls of their container with greater force, resulting in higher pressure.
Gay-Lussac's work built upon the unpublished findings of Jacques Charles, a French mathematician, physicist, and inventor. Charles was the first to discover that heating a gas will cause it to expand, and he conducted the first crewed flight in a hydrogen-filled balloon in 1783. Charles' Law, however, was named in honour of Gay-Lussac's work, as he was able to place the theory on a sound empirical footing.
Gay-Lussac's research focused on the expansion of gases with increased temperatures. He discovered that equal volumes of all gases expand equally with the same increase in temperature. This conclusion is known as "Charles' Law". Gay-Lussac's experiments typically began at the freezing point of water with a volume of 100. Using Charles' Law, one can predict the volume of the gas at the boiling point of water. Gay-Lussac found that at 0°C, the volume of the gas was 100, and at 100°C, the volume increased to 137.50.
Gay-Lussac's work extended beyond Charles' Law. He is also known for his daring ascents in hydrogen-filled balloons, which allowed him to investigate other aspects of gases. In 1808, he announced another significant discovery: gases at constant temperature and pressure combine in simple numerical proportions by volume, with the resulting product bearing a simple proportion by volume to the volumes of the reactants. This conclusion became known as Gay-Lussac's Law.
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Charles' Law describes how gases expand when heated
Charles's Law, also known as the law of volumes, describes how gases tend to expand when heated. The law was named after Jacques Charles, a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, and balloonist. Charles's Law states that the volume of a given mass of gas varies directly with the absolute temperature of the gas when pressure is kept constant. In other words, the volume occupied by a fixed amount of gas is directly proportional to its absolute temperature if the pressure remains constant. This means that as the temperature increases, the volume of the gas also increases proportionally. Conversely, a decrease in temperature will lead to a decrease in volume.
The basic principles behind Charles's Law were first described by Guillaume Amontons and Francis Hauksbee about a century before Charles's work. However, the law itself is attributed to Charles, who formulated the original law in his unpublished work from the 1780s. Specifically, it was suggested by the French physicist J.-A.-C. Charles around 1787 and later placed on a sound empirical footing by the chemist Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac in 1802. Gay-Lussac credited the discovery to Charles, but due to the lack of firm records of Charles's work, some sources do not attribute the law to him.
The French natural philosopher Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac confirmed the discovery in a presentation to the French National Institute on January 31, 1802. Gay-Lussac was clear that the law did not apply at low temperatures, as gases would condense into a liquid state before reaching absolute zero. The Kelvin temperature scale is used in Charles's Law because zero on this scale corresponds to a complete stoppage of molecular motion. Charles's Law is derived from the kinetic theory of gases, which relates the macroscopic properties of gases (such as pressure and volume) to the microscopic properties of their constituent molecules (such as mass and speed).
Charles's Law can be used to explain various phenomena, such as the expansion of bread dough due to the production of carbon dioxide by yeast at high temperatures. It is also a special case of the general gas law and can be used to compare changing conditions for a gas. The mathematical relationship of the law can be expressed using initial and final volume and temperature values, allowing for the calculation of any one of these four quantities if the other three are known.
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Charles' Law is a special case of the general gas law
Charles's Law, which describes how gases tend to expand when heated, was formulated by Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac in 1802. Gay-Lussac credited the discovery to unpublished work from the 1780s by Jacques Charles, a French inventor, scientist, mathematician, and balloonist. Charles's Law is a statement that the volume occupied by a fixed amount of gas is directly proportional to its absolute temperature, if the pressure remains constant. This empirical relation was first suggested by Charles around 1787 and was later placed on a sound empirical footing by Gay-Lussac.
Charles's Law is a special case of the general gas law and can be derived from the kinetic theory of gases under the assumption of a perfect (ideal) gas. The kinetic theory of gases relates the macroscopic properties of gases, such as pressure and volume, to the microscopic properties of the molecules that make up the gas, particularly their mass and speed. To derive Charles's Law from kinetic theory, a microscopic definition of temperature is required. This can be defined as the temperature being proportional to the average kinetic energy of the gas molecules.
Charles's Law gives the relationship between volume and temperature if the pressure and the amount of gas are held constant. If the Kelvin temperature of a gas is increased, the volume of the gas increases, and if the temperature is decreased, the volume of the gas decreases. This law is a special case of the general gas law because it assumes that the gas behaves ideally, and measurements show that at constant pressure, the thermal expansion of real gases at sufficiently low pressure and high temperature conforms closely to Charles's Law.
Charles's Law is an important concept in the field of gas laws, which also includes Boyle's Law, Avogadro's Law, and the Ideal Gas Law. These laws relate the basic characteristic properties of gases to each other, such as pressure, temperature, volume, and the number of moles. By understanding these relationships, scientists can make predictions and calculations about the behaviour of gases under different conditions. Charles's Law, in particular, helps to explain the thermal expansion of gases and how their volume changes with temperature.
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Charles' Law can be derived from the kinetic theory of gases
Jacques Alexandre César Charles, born on November 12, 1746, in Beaugency, France, was a French inventor, scientist, mathematician, and balloonist. Charles's law, describing how gases tend to expand when heated, was formulated by Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac in 1802, but he credited it to unpublished work by Charles from the 1780s. Charles's law is an experimental gas law that describes how gases expand when heated and how volume and temperature are directly proportional when pressure is held constant.
Charles's law can be derived from the kinetic theory of gases, which relates the macroscopic properties of gases, such as pressure and volume, to the microscopic properties of the molecules that make up the gas, particularly their mass and speed. To derive Charles's law from kinetic theory, a microscopic definition of temperature is necessary. This can be defined as the temperature being proportional to the average kinetic energy of the gas molecules.
Charles's law is a special case of the general gas law and can be derived from the kinetic theory of gases under the assumption of an ideal gas. Measurements show that at constant pressure, the thermal expansion of real gases at sufficiently low pressure and high temperature conforms closely to Charles's law.
The law was first suggested by Charles around 1787 and later placed on a sound empirical footing by Gay-Lussac. It is named after Jacques Charles, who formulated the original law in his unpublished work from the 1780s. Charles's work in this area was inspired by his study of Robert Boyle's Boyle's Law, which was published 100 years before Charles's work.
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Frequently asked questions
Jacques Alexandre César Charles, a French inventor, scientist, mathematician, and balloonist, is credited with creating Charles's Law.
Charles's Law describes how gases expand when heated, and how this affects their volume and a balloon's ability to lift off.
Charles's Law was formulated by Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac in 1802, based on unpublished work by Charles from around 1787.
Jacques Charles conducted experiments on how the volume of gases depended on temperature, but he did not publish his work.
Jacques Charles is also known for his work with hydrogen balloons. He was the first to ascend in a hydrogen balloon along with Nicolas Robert in 1783.















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