610 Tamarind Road

Butuan City, Agusan Del Norte

January 3, 2018
Dear Ma’am Marialie,

“Nothing will ever equal that moment of joyous excitement which filled my
whole being when I felt myself flying away from the earth. It was not mere
pleasure; it was perfect bliss. Escaped from the frightful torments of
persecution and of calumny, I felt that I was answering all in rising above all.”

Hello ma’am! I chose to research about Charles’ Law since it was the second
one to be introduced to us. Doing that, I happened to find a quote by Jacques
Charles (the one written at the top); it is fascinating that he sincerely admired
the sky as he journeyed through it with a hydrogen balloon.

Charles's law or the law of volumes, describing how gases tend to expand when
heated, was formulated by Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac in 1802, but he credited
it to the unpublished work by Jacques Charles.

Born on November 12, 1746 in Beaugency-sur-Loire, Jacques Alexandre

César was a French mathematician, physicist, and inventor who, along with
Nicolas Robert, was the first to ascend in a hydrogen balloon in 1783. During
his childhood, he had a liberal education with no scientific focus.

He married Julie Françoise Bouchaud des Hérettes (1784–1817), a creole

woman 37 years younger than himself. Reportedly the poet Alphonse de
Lamartine also fell in love with her, and she was the inspiration for Elvire in
his 1820 autobiographical Poetic Meditation "Le Lac" ("The Lake"), which
describes in retrospect the fervent love shared by a couple from the point of
view of the bereaved man. Charles outlived her and died in Paris on April 7,
1823.

From clerking in the finance ministry Charles turned to science and

experimented with electricity. He developed several inventions including a
hydrometer and reflecting goniometer, and improved the Gravesand heliostat
and Fahrenheit’s aerometer.

Now, why did he want to study gases? Charles was inspired to study physics
in 1779, when Benjamin Franklin visited France.
In the late 1700s ballooning became a major preoccupation of France and other
industrialized nations. On August 27, 1783, Charles launched the first
hydrogen-filled balloon using gas produced by the reaction of sulfuric acid on
iron filings. Charles, who was interested in aeronautics, understood the concept
of buoyancy and also was aware of Henry Cavendish's discovery of hydrogen,
an element fourteen times lighter than air, seventeen years earlier. Among the
50,000 witnesses of this event was Benjamin Franklin, then residing in Paris
as the U.S. ambassador to France. When the balloon returned to Earth in the
French countryside, it was reportedly attacked with axes and pitchforks by
terrified peasants who believed it to be a monster from the skies. On November
21 of that same year the Montgolfier brothers launched the first hot-air balloon
with humans aboard, managing an altitude of less than 30 meters (98 feet).
Charles, with the aid of brothers Nicholas and Aine Jean Robert, became the
first human to ascend in a hydrogen balloon just ten days later. A far greater
height of almost 3,000 meters (9,843 feet) was attained thanks to the superior
lift of the hydrogen balloon Charles had designed and helped build.

About 1787 he developed Charles’s law concerning the thermal expansion of

gases.

For his experiment, just like Boyle did, Charles used a J-shaped tube with a
certain amount of gas trapped inside it. Mercury was then added and allowed
to equalize in height at the bottom of the tube. With both levels of mercury at
the same height ensured that the pressure inside the tube was the same as the
atmospheric pressure. The tube was then submerged in water and by varying
the temperature of the water, it changed the temperature of the gas within the
tube. This showed that when the temperature was raised the total volume of the
gas would rise, pushing the mercury up the j-shape tube. Using this experiment,
the relationship between volume and temperature of a gas can be seen (Charles'
Law).

The variables manipulated in Charles’ Law are volume and temperature while
the variable that remained constant is pressure. It is expressed as:

Vi Vf
=
Ti Tf

where, Vi is the initial volume, Ti is the initial absolute temperature, Vf is the

final volume, and Tf is the final absolute temperature.
Charles’ Law is important as it explained how the volume of gases depended
on temperature. From that, the chemistry of why hot-air balloons rise can be
described. A torch is used to heat the air molecules inside the balloon. The
molecules move faster and disperse within the space. The gas inside the
balloon takes up more space, becoming less dense than the air surrounding it.
As such, the hot air inside the balloon rises because of its decreased density
and causes the balloon to float.

In hospitals, Charles’ Law is applied. Charles’ Law is confirmed every day

inside and outside a hospital, and it is especially important to understand when
working with the human body. Most people, at one time or another, have seen
the warning labels on aerosol cans warning against heating to extreme
temperatures, and most medical personnel can verify the same about
compressed oxygen. The rapid expansion of compressed gas and aerosol due
to excessive temperatures, is responsible for shooting any compressed
cylinder, can of hairspray to a four-foot oxygen cylinder, ten feet high,
damaging anything in its way in the process. This exhibition of Charles’ Law
is why storage of oxygen cylinders is so vitally important in the healthcare field
and with patients alike.

Typical manufacturers recommend that automobile tire pressures vary between

around 25 to 35 pounds per square inch. But if you read your owner's manual
carefully, it will mention that tire pressure should always be measured cold.
That's because driving around heats up tires. Charles' law states that the gas
should occupy more space when heated, but a tire does not expand very much.
This causes the tire pressure to be higher when warm. Consequently,
measuring tire pressure when the tire is warm will give you the false
impression that you have filled your tires with too much air.

So, what would happen if gases did not act this way? Well, it would be hard to
imagine how gases would act then but it is given that without it, the combined
gas law wouldn’t be complete and Charles’ flight with the hydrogen balloon
wouldn’t happen.

Here is the list of some of my resources. (in URL)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Charles
http://www.chemistryexplained.com/Ce-Co/Charles-Jacques.html
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jacques-Charles
https://jacquescharles.weebly.com/biography.html
https://www.chemteam.info/GasLaw/Gas-Charles.html
http://scienceprimer.com/charles-law
https://gareths-chemistry-assignment1.weebly.com/jacques-charles.html
http://www.edulab.com/news/charles-law-real-life-applications

I tried to make it shorter but it turned out like this. I hope that you would read
it ma’am. Thank you!

Your Student,

Justine Lois P. Ruiz