Amedeo Avogadro | |
---|---|
Born |
Turin, Piedmont-Sardinia |
9 August 1776
Died | 9 July 1856 Turin, Piedmont-Sardinia |
(aged 79)
Nationality | Italian |
Fields | Physics |
Institutions | University of Turin |
Known for |
Avogadro's law Avogadro constant Avogadro's Number |
Signature |
Lorenzo Romano Amedeo Carlo Avogadro,Count of Quaregna and Cerreto (9 August 1776, Turin, Piedmont-Sardinia – 9 July 1856), was an Italian scientist, most noted for his contribution to molecular theory now known as Avogadro's law, which states that equal volumes of gases under the same conditions of temperature and pressure will contain equal numbers of molecules. In tribute to him, the number of elementary entities (atoms, molecules, ions or other particles) in 1 mole of a substance, 14179(30)×1023, is known as the 6.022Avogadro constant, one of the seven SI base units and represented by NA.
Avogadro was born at Turin to a noble family of Piedmont-Sardinia in the year 1776. That city, now part of Italy, was then of the Kingdom of Sardinia.
He graduated in ecclesiastical law at the late age of 20 and began to practice. Soon after, he dedicated himself to physics and mathematics (then called positive philosophy), and in 1809 started teaching them at a liceo (high school) in Vercelli, where his family lived and had some property.
In 1811, he published an article with the title Essai d'une manière de déterminer les masses relatives des molécules élémentaires des corps, et les proportions selon lesquelles elles entrent dans ces combinaisons ("Essay on Determining the Relative Masses of the Elementary Molecules of Bodies and the Proportions by Which They Enter These Combinations"), which contains Avogadro's hypothesis. Avogadro submitted this essay to a Jean-Claude Delamétherie's Journal de Physique, de Chimie et d'Histoire naturelle ("Journal of Physics, Chemistry and Natural History", Piedmont at the time forming part of the First French Empire).