Avogadro biography wikipedia
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Said Avogadro:
We suppose, namely, that the constituent molecules of any simple gas whatever … are not formed of a solitary elementary molecule (atom), but are made up of a certain number of these molecules (atoms) united by attraction to form a single one (Avogadro 1811).
Avogadro developed his hypothesis to explain Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac's findings that when two gases enter into chemical combination to form a third substance, the volumes of the two gases are in simple integral proportions to one another, such as 1:1, 1:2, or 3:2.
A good example is water. Essay on a Manner of Determining the Relative Masses of the Elementary Molecules of Bodies, and the Proportions in Which They Enter into These Compounds.Journal de Physique 73:58-76.
Furtsch, T.A. Some notes on Avogadro's number.Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville. Response to the theory
The scientific community was well aware of Avogadro's hypothesis. His father was a descendant of an ancient family with a long history in the legal profession.
He submitted his first paper with his brother, Felice, on electricity to the Academy of Sciences in Turin in 1803.
Yet, because of the prevailing theories of intermolecular forces and a general confusion over the meaning of a molecule and an atom, Avogadro's hypothesis was adopted by only a small minority of chemists in the several decades after he suggested it.
Amedeo Avogadro
Claimed by lchen353
Amadeo Avagadro (Lorenze Romano Amedeo Carlo Avagadro, conte di Quaregna e Cerreto) was born on August 9, 1776 in Turin, Italy to his father Filippo, a magistrate and senator, and his mother Anna Vercellone, a noblewoman of noblewoman.
Avagadro worked very closely with John Dalton and Joseph Gay-Lussac in researching the different properties of atoms, and throughout the early 1800s they performed experiments that led them to interesting conclusions, such as proving that a water molecule consists of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, instead of the proposed singular hydrogen and oxygen atom.
One became a general in the Italian Army. In the third year of its new life, the position was given to Avogadro, who held it until 1850, when upon his retirement, it was occupied by his student, Felice Chio.
Avogadro and his wife, Donna Felicita Mazzi, had six sons.
Reception
Despite Avagadro's (correct) interpretation of molecules and their properties, his work was not widely durring his lifetime.
Avogadro published several more papers, one in 1814, and two others in 1821, dealing with the combining weights of chemical compounds. This task was first accomplished by the physicist Joseph Loschmidt.
Lorenzo Romano Amedeo Carlo Avogadro, Count of Quaregna and Cerreto (August 9, 1776 – July 9, 1856), was an Italian chemist who provided the solution to important problems in chemistry by postulating that equal volumes of gas at the same temperature and pressure contain equal numbers of molecules.
The matter was finally concluded by Stanislao Cannizzaro, as announced at Karlsruhe Congress in 1860, four years after Avogadro's death. For example, the reaction of hydrogen and oxygen can be understood, if hydrogen and oxygen molecules are diatomic, as resulting from this molecular reaction: 2H2 + O2 → 2 H2O. Avogadro’s work was largely ignored during his lifetime but became known shortly after his death and eventually his ideas were shown to be correct. Little is known about Avogadro’s private life, but his obituary in the Gazzetta Piemontese nine days after his death says that he was “religioso senza intolleranza, dotto senza pedanteria” (“religious without intolerance, learned without pedantry”).
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Accomplishments
During his stay in Vercelli, Avogadro wrote a concise note in which he declared the hypothesis of what is now called Avogadro's law:
- The number of integral molecules in any gas is always the same for equal volumes, or always proportional to the volumes (Avogadro, 1811).
This memoria he sent to a French scientific journal and it was published in the edition of July 14, 1811, under the title, "Essay on a manner of determining the relative masses of the elementary molecules of bodies, and the proportions in which they enter into combination."
It had already been established that if an element forms more than one compound with another element (such as oxygen combining with carbon to form carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide), then the weight of the second element being the same, the weights of the first element that combine with it are in simple integral proportions to each other.
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In 1808, he published, "Considerations on which the state of non-conducting matter must be, when interposed between two surfaces endued with opposite electricities."
The memoir for which he is best known, and in which he postulated his important hypothesis—that equal volumes of gas are composed of equal numbers of molecules—was published in 1811.