Guillaume Amontons
| Guillaume Amontons | |
|---|---|
Guillaume Amontons, Luxembourg Garden, 1690
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| Born | 31 August 1663 Paris, France |
| Died |
11 October 1705 (aged 42) Paris, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Fields | Physics |
| Known for | Tribology |
Guillaume Amontons (31 August 1663 – 11 October 1705) was a French scientific instrument inventor and physicist. He was one of the pioneers in studying the problem of friction, that is the resistance to motion where bodies are in contact. It is nowadays known as tribology.
Guillaume was born in Paris, France. His father was a lawyer from Normandy who had moved to the French capital. While still young, Guillaume lost his hearing, which may have motivated him to focus entirely on science. He never attended a university, but was able to study mathematics, the physical sciences, and celestial mechanics. He also spent time studying the skills of drawing, surveying, and architecture. He died in Paris, France.
He was supported in his research career by the government, and was employed in various public works projects.
Among his contributions to scientific instrumentation were improvements to the barometer (1695), hygrometer (1687), and thermometer (1695), particularly for use of these instruments at sea. He also demonstrated an optical telegraph and proposed the use of his clepsydra (water clock) for keeping time on a ship at sea.
Amontons investigated the relationship between pressure and temperature in gases though he lacked accurate and precise thermometers. Though his results were at best semi-quantitative, he established that the pressure of a gas increases by roughly one-third between the temperatures of cold and the boiling point of water. This was a substantial step towards the subsequent gas laws and, in particular, Gay-Lussac's law. His work led him to speculate that a sufficient reduction in temperature would lead to the disappearance of pressure. Though he came close to finding absolute zero - the theoretical temperature by which the volume of air in his air-thermometer will by reduced to nothing (estimated by him as −240 on the Celsius scale), the discovery would not be complete until at least a century later.
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