Henri Victor Regnault (21 July 1810 – 19 January 1878) was a French

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of ...

and

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

best known for his careful measurements of the thermal properties of gases. He was an early thermodynamicist and was mentor to William Thomson in the late 1840s. He never used his first given name, and was known throughout his lifetime as Victor Regnault.

Biography

Born in Aix-la-Chapelle in 1810 (modern Aachen, Germany and at that time under French rule), he moved to Paris at the age of eight, following the death of his parents. There, he worked for an upholstery firm until he was eighteen. In 1830, he was admitted to the

École Polytechnique (, ; also known as Polytechnique or l'X ) is a ''grande école'' located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris. The school was founded in 1794 by mat ...

, and in 1832 he graduated from the École des mines. Working under

Justus von Liebig Justus ''Freiherr'' von Liebig (12 May 1803 – 18 April 1873) was a Germans, German scientist who made major contributions to the theory, practice, and pedagogy of chemistry, as well as to agricultural and biology, biological chemistry; he is ...

Gießen Giessen, spelled in German (), is a town in the German state () of Hesse, capital of both the district of Giessen and the administrative region of Giessen. The population is approximately 90,000, with roughly 37,000 university students. Th ...

, Regnault distinguished himself in the nascent field of

organic chemistry Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the science, scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic matter, organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain ...

by synthesizing several chlorinated

hydrocarbons In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons are examples of group 14 hydrides. Hydrocarbons are generally colourless and hydrophobic; their odor is usually faint, and may b ...

(e.g.

vinyl chloride Vinyl chloride is an organochloride with the formula H2C =CHCl. It is also called vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) or chloroethene. It is an important industrial chemical chiefly used to produce the polymer polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Vinyl chloride is a ...

in 1835, dichloromethane and perchloroethylene in 1839,

1,1,1-Trichloroethane 1,1,1-Trichloroethane, also known as methyl chloroform and chlorothene, is a chloroalkane with the chemical formula CH3CCl3. It is an isomer of 1,1,2-trichloroethane. A colourless and sweet-smelling liquid, it was once produced industrially i ...

in 1838 or 1840), and he was appointed professor of chemistry at the University of

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

. In 1840, he was appointed the chair of chemistry of the École Polytechnique, and in 1841, he became a professor of physics in the

Collège de France The (), formerly known as the or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment () in France. It is located in Paris near La Sorbonne. The has been considered to be France's most ...

. Beginning in 1843, he began compiling extensive numerical tables on the properties of

steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...

. These were published in 1847, and inspired

Charles Algernon Parsons Sir Charles Algernon Parsons (13 June 1854 – 11 February 1931) was an Anglo-Irish mechanical engineer and inventor who designed the modern steam turbine in 1884. His invention revolutionised marine propulsion, and he was also the founder of C ...

to develop the

steam turbine A steam turbine or steam turbine engine is a machine or heat engine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work utilising a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Par ...

. Regnault received the Rumford Medal of the

Royal Society of London The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, r ...

and appointment as Chief Engineer of Mines. In 1851 he was elected a foreign member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences () is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for promoting nat ...

. In 1854 he was appointed director of the

porcelain Porcelain (), also called china, is a ceramic material made by heating Industrial mineral, raw materials, generally including kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The greater strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to oth ...

works at

Sèvres Sèvres (, ) is a French Communes of France, commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris. It is located from the Kilometre zero, centre of Paris, in the Hauts-de-Seine department of the Île-de-France region. The commune, which had a populatio ...

, the ''

Manufacture nationale de Sèvres The ''Manufacture nationale de Sèvres'' () is one of the principal European porcelain factories. It is located in Sèvres, Hauts-de-Seine, France. It is the continuation of Vincennes porcelain, founded in 1740, which moved to Sèvres in 1756. ...

''. In 1855, he was elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

. At Sèvres, he continued work on the thermal properties of matter. He designed sensitive

thermometer A thermometer is a device that measures temperature (the hotness or coldness of an object) or temperature gradient (the rates of change of temperature in space). A thermometer has two important elements: (1) a temperature sensor (e.g. the bulb ...

hygrometer A hair tension dial hygrometer with a nonlinear scale. A hygrometer is an instrument that measures humidity: that is, how much water vapor is present. Humidity measurement instruments usually rely on measurements of some other quantities, such a ...

s, hypsometers and

calorimeter A calorimeter is a device used for calorimetry, or the process of measuring the heat of chemical reactions or physical changes as well as heat capacity. Differential scanning calorimeters, isothermal micro calorimeters, titration calorimeters ...

s, and measured the

specific heat In thermodynamics, the specific heat capacity (symbol ) of a substance is the amount of heat that must be added to one unit of mass of the substance in order to cause an increase of one unit in temperature. It is also referred to as massic heat ...

s of many substances and the

coefficient of thermal expansion Thermal expansion is the tendency of matter to increase in length, area, or volume, changing its size and density, in response to an increase in temperature (usually excluding phase transitions). Substances usually contract with decreasing temp ...

of gases. In the course of this work, he discovered that not all gases expand equally when heated and that

Boyle's law Boyle's law, also referred to as the Boyle–Mariotte law or Mariotte's law (especially in France), is an empirical gas laws, gas law that describes the relationship between pressure and volume of a confined gas. Boyle's law has been stated as: ...

is only an approximation, especially at temperatures near a substance's boiling point. Regnault was also an avid amateur photographer. He introduced the use of pyrogallic acid as a developing agent, and was one of the first photographers to use paper negatives. In 1854, he became the founding president of the

Société française de photographie The Société française de photographie (SFP) is an association, founded on 15 November 1854, devoted to the history of photography. It has a large collection of photographs and old cameras. Among the founding members were Olympe Aguado, Hippoly ...

. In 1871, his laboratory at Sèvres was destroyed and his son Alex-Georges-Henri Regnault killed, both as a result of the

Franco-Prussian War The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the War of 1870, was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia. Lasting from 19 July 1870 to 28 Janua ...

. He retired from science the next year, never recovering from these losses.

Legacy

The crater Regnault on the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

is named after Regnault, and his name is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower. Some have suggested that the symbol ''R'' for the ideal gas constant is also named after him. He was the first president of

. The French ''Regnault'', built between 1913 and 1924 was named for him.

Works

* ''Regnault-Strecker's kurzes Lehrbuch der Chemie''. Vieweg, Braunschweig 185
Digital edition
by the

University and State Library Düsseldorf The University and State Library Düsseldorf (, abbreviated ULB Düsseldorf) is a central service institution of Heinrich Heine University. Along with Bonn and Münster, it is also one of the three State Libraries of North Rhine-Westphalia. ...

*
2. Organische Chemie. 1853
*
1. Anorganische Chemie. 3., verb. Aufl. 1855
*
2. Organische Chemie. 2. Aufl.1857
*
1. Anorganische Chemie. 4. Aufl.1858
*
1. Anorganische Chemie. 9., neu bearb. Aufl. / von Johannes Wislicenus. 1877

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Regnault, Henri Victor 1810 births 1878 deaths 19th-century French chemists 19th-century French physicists French Roman Catholics Thermodynamicists Academic staff of the Collège de France École Polytechnique alumni Mines Paris - PSL alumni Corps des mines People from Aachen Scientists from the Rhine Province Foreign members of the Royal Society Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Members of the French Academy of Sciences Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class) Recipients of the Copley Medal 19th-century French photographers Recipients of the Matteucci Medal Members of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala International members of the American Philosophical Society