Amedeo Avogadro
Amedeo Avogadro was born in Turin, Italy, on August 9th, 1776. Avogadro came from an Aristocratic family, and he himself grew up as an aristocrat. His father was Cavaliere Filippo Avogadro, a major lawyer and senator in the Piedmont area on Northern Italy in 1768. Afterward, in the year of 1777, he was designated as an advocate general to the senate of Vittorio Amedeo III. Amedeo’s father held the title of Count, meaning he was in a intermediate range of nobility. Avogadro later inherited this title in 1787, making his full name Count Lorenzo Romano Amedeo Carlo Avogadro di Quaregna e di Cerreto. His mother, Anna Vercellone di Biella, was a noblewoman. His father came from a family which has an ancient history of being in the legal profession. Avogadro was highly intelligent at a young age and he followed his father and studied law at first. However he later dedicated himself to science in around the 1800s. Avogadro was a private man who was quietly religious and followed the catholic church. The catholic church was and still is a very large religious group with many followers, especially in Italy where Avogadro lived. His religious beliefs or the catholic church may have hindered his advances in science, since the religion was contradictory with many scientific ideas at the time. Avogadro married Felicita Mazzé late in life, in 1815, and had 6 children. On July 9, 1856 Amedeo Avogadro died at the age of 79 in the place of his birth, Turin, Italy.
Amedeo Avogadro is most famous for introducing Avogadro’s Law. He always had a passion for finding the composition of matter, and how the particles that make up matter react when they combine to form chemicals compounds. In 1811, the chemist hypothesized that if any two different gases were of the same volume, then they had an equal amount of molecules. Scientists at the time disagreed with this hypothesis because they did not know that elements could not only be made up of atoms, but they could also be in the form of molecules. Avogadro was able to come to this hypothesis after studying the works of two other chemists, John Dalton and Joseph Gay-Lussac. Their works on the atomic theory and combining gases greatly influenced Avogadro. Many wondered why two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule combined to form two water particles. This was answered by Avogadro, when he claimed that elements can exist as bigger particles. In fact, he began to use words such as molécule intégrante, molécule constituante, and molécule élémentaire. These words can be translated to molecules of a compound, molecules of an element, and atom. Furthermore, he used his hypothesis towards metals and gave 17 atomic weights to metallic elements. Avogadro put the collections of his work into the Journal de Physique. It explained masses of atoms, masses of compounds, and the densities of gas. However, scientists did not pay heed...
