Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Chronological table
- List of abbreviations
- 1 A young provincial in Paris
- 2 The apprentice of Arcueil
- 3 Personal influences and the search for laws
- 4 Collaboration and rivalry
- 5 The volumetric approach
- 6 Scientific research
- 7 Professor, Academician and editor
- 8 A scientist in the service of government and industry
- 9 A new technique and the dissemination of technical information
- 10 Scientist and bourgeois in the political arena
- 11 The legacy
- Appendix: select correspondence
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Name index
- Subject index
2 - The apprentice of Arcueil
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Chronological table
- List of abbreviations
- 1 A young provincial in Paris
- 2 The apprentice of Arcueil
- 3 Personal influences and the search for laws
- 4 Collaboration and rivalry
- 5 The volumetric approach
- 6 Scientific research
- 7 Professor, Academician and editor
- 8 A scientist in the service of government and industry
- 9 A new technique and the dissemination of technical information
- 10 Scientist and bourgeois in the political arena
- 11 The legacy
- Appendix: select correspondence
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Name index
- Subject index
Summary
‘At Arcueil…I dined in distinguished company…
There was a lot of very interesting discussion. It is these gatherings…which are the joy of life’
Gay-LussacAssistant to Berthollet
Gay-Lussac was fortunate in having the resources of the Ecole Polytechnique on which to draw, but he was doubly fortunate in having a second source of support as a semi-permanent guest at Berthollet's country house at Arcueil, a few kilometres to the south of Paris. It was in the autumn of 1801 that Berthollet, General Bonaparte's former companion in Egypt and now a senator, decided to buy another property which he could equip as a centre of research. Complementing his good library there were practical facilities, excellent by the standards of the time, consisting of a chemistry laboratory and a physics laboratory, well endowed with apparatus. It was in this environment that Gay-Lussac was to work under the supervision of Berthollet.
The role of Berthollet in Gay-Lussac's life merits careful examination. It was without doubt the most important personal influence in the latter's whole life. Berthollet's role was in the first place that of a teacher. But in the case of Berthollet the term ‘teacher’ has a special meaning. Unlike his colleague, Fourcroy, Berthollet was a poor lecturer and the fact that a person attended his lectures is unlikely to have made any deep impact on him. Gay-Lussac was Berthollet's student in the more personal sense of being initially a research assistant.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Gay-LussacScientist and Bourgeois, pp. 21 - 42Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1978
- 2
- Cited by