Charles Bernard Desormes [SEP] native language
Charles Bernard Desormes
Charles Bernard Desormes (; 3 June 1777 – 30 August 1862) was a French physicist and chemist. He determined the ratio of the specific heats of gases in 1819. He did this and almost all his scientific work in collaboration with his son-in-law Nicolas Clément (1779–1841). Clément and Desormes correctly determined the composition of carbon disulfide (CS) and carbon monoxide (CO) in 1801–02. In 1806 they elucidated all the chemical reactions that take place during the production of sulfuric acid by
. Courtois suspected that this material was a new element but lacked funding to pursue it further.
Courtois gave samples to his friends, Charles Bernard Desormes (1777–1838) and Nicolas Clément (1779–1841), to continue research. He also gave some of the substance to chemist Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778–1850), and to physicist André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836). On 29 November 1813, Desormes and Clément made Courtois' discovery public. They described the substance to a meeting of the Imperial Institute of France.