Lussac made new types of equipment like the portable barometer, an improved pipette and burette, and a new type of equipment that accurately estimated the purity of silver. (5) His work with the expansion of gases was used by Lord Kelvin in the absolute temperature scale and Third Law of Thermodynamics and in the Second Law(9). He helped improve ways of studying elements and found ways to produce and measure acids and alkalis(16). His work with the effect of light improved photo-chemistry (10). Also, Gay-Lussac tested his hypotheses on earth's magnetic field and the composition of the air by traveling up in a hot air balloon.. On Aug. 24, 1804, Gay-Lussac went up 13,000 feet in the air to study the difference of the Earth's magnetism with increased height. On Gay-Lussac’s second lift, he made a record height of 23,018 feet. He reasoned that the Earth's magnetic intensity and the composition of the air were constant. (20). Gay-Lussac’s most famous work is his Law of Combining Volumes. This law states that the compounds of gaseous substances with each other are always formed in very simple ratios by volume(11). Gay-Lussac then worked with the scientist/explorer Alexander von Humbolt They became good friends and later traveled together through Europe for a year in 1805, going to Rome, Switzerland and Berlin(3). Before that, they worked on finding the ratio where hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water. They needed this to help find the percent of oxygen in the air. They came up with very accurate results of a volume ratio of 100 of oxygen to 200 of hydrogen. He also worked with Humbolt on measuring the earth's magnetic intensity. In 1807 he did many experiments to find out if there is a relationship between the specific heats of gases and their densities(3). Gay-Lussac looked at some data that was already collected. This data focused on the proportions by weight of nitrogen. Gay-Lussac then took that data and reduced the pro...
