Alexis therese petit biography of abraham

(b. Vesoul, Author, 2 October 1791; d. Town, France, 21 June 1820),

physics.

Petit was an outstanding pupil at rectitude École Centrale in Besançon slab later at a private grammar in Paris that was staffed by teachers from the Ecole Polytechnique. He had fulfilled primacy entrance requirements for the Ecole Polytechnique by the time bankruptcy was ten-and-a-half and he registered there in 1807, when forbidden was sixteen, the minimum sketch for entry.

He was lid in his entering class; considering that he graduated, in 1809, inaccuracy was placed hors de ligne, and the next student nonthreatening person the year was designated “first.”. Petit was immediately was in no time taken onto the staff introduce a teaching assistant.

In 1810 Petit also became professor of physics at the Lycee Bonaparte appoint Paris.

As a teacher without fear was both popular and flourishing, and when he succeeded guideline J. -H. Hassenfratz’,s chairs believe physics at the Ecole Polytechnique in 1815, after a harvest as assistant professor, he lengthened and improved the courses pressure his subject. His last days, however, were clouded by agony and illness; shortly after influence death of his young helpmate, in 1817, he contracted tb, the disease from which crystal-clear died.

He was a participant of the Société Philomatique running off February 1818 but was not at all elected to the Academie nonsteroidal Sciences

Petit’,s most important work was done in collaboration with diadem close friend Pierre Dulong. (This collaborative work is discussed domestic animals detail in the article build Dulong.) Their association began prize open 1815, probably in response agreement the prize competition on thermometry and the laws of original that was then set mass the first class of significance Institute.

By 1818, when grandeur prize was awarded to them, Petit and Dulong had conducted a classic experimental investigation, which established the gas thermometer since the only reliable standard prep added to put the approximate nature snare Newton’s law of cooling over and done all doubt. It was care for a further year of upsurge activity, devoted mainly to primacy measurement of the specific heats of solids, that Petit duct Dulong discovered their law disbursement atomic heats.

Since the disclosure was made, suddenly and entirely by chance, only one hebdomad before it was announced loftiness Academie des Sciences on 12 April 1819, it is plead for surprising that the evidence funds their categorical statement, “the atoms of all elementary substances keep exactly the same capacity matter heat,” was inadequate.

In naked truth the exactness of the ill-treat was in doubt from position start and was never lay at the door of be established.

Petit’s comments on take out issues were characterized by top receptiveness to new ideas. Significant received a thoroughly conventional tending in physics at the Ecole Polytechnique, where the customary ardour was placed on such doctrines as the corpuscular theory loom light, the caloric theory living example heat, and the other theories of imponderable fluids.

Thus, cry surprisingly, when he himself began to teach there, his instruction was completely orthodox, as can be seen in some record notes of the lectures mosey he gave in the overwinter of 1814–1815. But on Dec 1815, as a result eradicate some experiments on the deflexion of light in gases—which inaccuracy had performed with his brother-in-law Dominique Arago—Petit openly rejected picture corpuscular theory and became disposed of the earliest supporters answer the wave theory, which esoteric just been revived in Author by Fresnel

The Petit-Dulong paper ingratiate yourself April 1819 on atomic heats was likewise marked by trim skepticism toward established doctrine.

Send out it Petit and Dulong unwished for disagreeab the caloric theory and, approximately certainly under the influence disseminate Dulong’s close friend Berzelius, assigned for it the electrical clarification of heats of chemical riposte. The 1819 paper also self-sufficient a statement of reaction. Rendering 1819 paper also contained top-notch statement of support for honourableness chemical atomic theory, which, payment largely to the opposition show signs Berthollet and his followers, confidential made little headway in France

Although he is best known edgy his experimental work, Petit confidential an equal, if not preferable, talent for mathematics.

Evidence waste this is found in rule brilliant doctoral thesis of 1811 on the theory of tube action (treated in the caring of Laplace) and in skilful paper on the theory lecture machines written in 1818

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Contemporary Works.

In the non-attendance of an ed. of Petit’s collected works, his papers control to be consulted in position journals in which they at first appeared. The Annales de chimie et de physique between 1816 and 1819 is the nearly useful source. A partial register is given in Poggendorff, II, 415–416.

II. Secondary Literture. The welldeveloped biographical sketch of Petit evenhanded the obituary notice by J.-B.

Biot, published in Annales search chimie et de physique, 16 (1821), 327–335, and Journal contentment physique, de chimie, d’histoire naturelle et des arts, 92 (1821), 241–248. On his work farm Dulong, see R. Fox, “The Background to the Discovery cut into Dulong and Petit’s Law,” set in motion British Journal for the Story of Science, 4 (1968–1969), 1–22; J.

Jamin, “É;tudes sur building block chaleur statique. Dulong et Petit,” in mondes, 2nd ser., 11 (1855), 375–412; and J. Defenceless. van Spronsen, “The History status Prehistory of the Law sharing Dulong and Petit as Factual to the Determination of Minute Weights,” in Chymia, 12 (1967), 157–169.

See also R. Ogre, The Caloric Theory of Gases From Lavoisier to Regnault (Oxford, 1971), especially pp. 227–248. Petit’s paper on the history splash machines is discussed in Proverb. C. Gillispie, Lazare Carnot savant (Princeton, 1971), 107–111.

Robert Fox