Jacques Charles

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Jacques Charles

Jacques Alexandre César Charles (November 12, 1746 – April 7, 1823) was a French inventor, scientist, mathematician, and balloonist. Charles was born in Beaugency-sur-Loire, and made the first flight of a hydrogen balloon

Balloon

A balloon is a flexible bag filled with a type of gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide or Earth's atmosphere. Modern balloons can be made from materials such as rubber, latex, polychloroprene, or a nylon fabric, while some early balloons were sometimes made of dried animal urinary bladders....
on August 271783.This balloon was destroyed by terrified peasants when it landed outside of Paris. On December 1 1783, a mere ten days after the manned flight of the Montgolfier hot-air balloon, Charles with Ainé Roberts, ascended to a height of about 1,800 feet (550 m) in his balloon "La Charlière".

Montgolfier's principal scientific collaborator was M.

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Jacques Alexandre César Charles (November 12, 1746 – April 7, 1823) was a French inventor, scientist, mathematician, and balloonist. Charles was born in Beaugency-sur-Loire, and made the first flight of a hydrogen balloon
Balloon

A balloon is a flexible bag filled with a type of gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide or Earth's atmosphere. Modern balloons can be made from materials such as rubber, latex, polychloroprene, or a nylon fabric, while some early balloons were sometimes made of dried animal urinary bladders....
on August 271783.This balloon was destroyed by terrified peasants when it landed outside of Paris. On December 1 1783, a mere ten days after the manned flight of the Montgolfier hot-air balloon, Charles with Ainé Roberts, ascended to a height of about 1,800 feet (550 m) in his balloon "La Charlière".

Montgolfier's principal scientific collaborator was M. Charles, ... who had been the first to propose the gas produced by vitriol instead of the burning, dampened straw and wood that he had used in earlier flights. Charles himself was also eager to ascend but had run into a firm veto from the King, who from the earliest reports had been observing the progress of the flights with keen attentiveness. Anxious about the perils of a maiden flight, the King had then proposed that two criminals be sent up in a basket, at which Charles and his colleagues became indignant.
Inventions
He developed several useful inventions, including a valve to let hydrogen out of the balloon and other devices, such as the hydrometer
Hydrometer

A hydrometer is an instrument used to measure the specific gravity of liquids; that is, the ratio of the density of the liquid to the density of water....
and reflecting goniometer
Goniometer

A goniometer is an instrument that either measures angle or allows an object to be rotated to a precise angular position. The term goniometry is derived from two Greek words, gonia, meaning angle and metron, meaning Measurement....
, and improved the Gravesand heliostat
Heliostat

A Heliostat is a device that tracks the movement of the sun. It is typically used to orient a mirror, throughout the day, to redirect sunlight along a fixed axis towards a stationary target or receiver....
and Fahrenheit
Fahrenheit

Fahrenheit is a temperature scale named after the physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit , who proposed it in 1724. Today, the scale has largely been replaced by the Celsius scale; it is still in use for non-scientific purposes in the United States and a few other countries such as Belize....
's aerometer
Aerometer

An aerometer is a Measuring instrument used to measure the weight and density of a gas or liquid. It is a hollow tube, widened at the bottom where a weight is placed ....
. In addition he confirmed Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author and Printer , Satire, list of political philosophers, politician, scientist, inventor, activism, statesman, and diplomacy....
's electrical experiments.

Around 1787 Charles did an experiment where he filled 5 balloons to the same volume with different gases. He then raised the temperature of the balloons to 80^oC and noticed that they all increased in volume by the same amount. This unpublished experiment was later referenced by Gay-Lussac in 1802 when he published a paper on the precise relationship between the volume and temperature of a gas, which Gay-Lussac named "Charles' Law" in honor of Jacques Charles' original experiment, and also because he didn't want to confuse people by having two laws named after himself. Charles' Law states that under constant pressure, an ideal gas
Ideal gas

The ideal gas model is a model of matter in which the molecules are treated as non-interacting point particles which are engaged in a random motion that obeys conservation of energy....
' volume is proportional to its absolute temperature. The volume of a gas at constant pressure increases linearly with the absolute temperature of the gas. The formula he created was V₁/T₁=V₂/T₂.

Career
Charles was elected to the Académie des Sciences, in 1793, and subsequently became professor of physics at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers. He was married to a creole
Creole peoples

The term Creole and its cognates in other languages ? such as crioulo, criollo, cr?ole, kriolu, criol, kreyol, kriulo, kriol, krio, kreol, etc....
wife. He died in Paris
Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
on April 71823.

See also

Gas laws
Gas laws

The gas laws are a set of empirical laws that describe the relationship between thermodynamic temperature , absolute pressure and volume of gases....
Timeline of hydrogen technologies
Timeline of hydrogen technologies

Timeline of hydrogen technologies A timeline of the history of hydrogen technology....