Henri Victor Regnault

Regnault worked between 1810 and 1878 across physicist, chemist, engineer, photographer and professor and 2 further recorded occupations. This article rests on 2 catalogued photographs, 13 published texts and 24 scholarly references drawn from named institutional registers. Every statement below returns to a source shown in the evidence panel; where the record is silent or divided, the article says so instead of resolving it.

Henri Victor Regnault studied at École polytechnique and Mines ParisTech. Hippolyte Fizeau is recorded as having studied under Henri Victor Regnault. The recorded working language is French. The field of work recorded is chemistry, organic chemistry and physics. Residence is recorded at Aachen. Employment is recorded with Collège de France. Positions recorded include president and director. Work by Henri Victor Regnault is recorded in the collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, National Gallery of Canada, Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and J. Paul Getty Museum. Distinctions recorded are Copley Medal, Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts order, Rumford Medal and Matteucci Medal.

• Name — Victor Regnault • Honorific Suffix — ForMemRS • Birth Name — Henri Victor Regnault • Born — 21 July 1810 • Birthplace — Aix-la-Chapelle, France • Died — 19 January 1878 • Place of death — Paris, France • Education — École Polytechnique • Thesis Title — Recherches relatives à l'action de la vapeur d'eau à une haute température sur les métaux et sur les sulfures métalliques • Thesis Url — https: patrimoine.sorbonne-universite.fr/idurl/1/1522 • Thesis Year — 1836 • Children — Henri Regnault • Awards — * Rumford Medal (1848) • Copley Medal (1869) • Matteucci Medal (1875) • Field — Thermodynamics

Born in Aix-la-Chapelle in 1810 (modern Aachen, Germany and at that time under French rule), he moved to Paris at the age of eight, following the death of his parents. There, he worked for an upholstery firm until he was eighteen. In 1830, he was admitted to the École Polytechnique, and in 1832 he graduated from the École des mines. Working under Justus von Liebig at Gießen, Regnault distinguished himself in the nascent field of organic chemistry by synthesizing several chlorinated hydrocarbons (e.g. vinyl chloride in 1835, dichloromethane and carbon tetrachloride in 1839, 1,1,1-Trichloroethane in 1838 or 1840), and he was appointed professor of chemistry at the University of Lyon. In 1840, he was appointed the chair of chemistry of the École Polytechnique, and in 1841, he became a professor of physics in the Collège de France. Beginning in 1843, he began compiling extensive numerical tables on the properties of steam. These were published in 1847, and inspired Charles Algernon Parsons to develop the steam turbine. Regnault received the Rumford Medal of the Royal Society of London and appointment as Chief Engineer of Mines. In 1851 he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1854 he was appointed director of the porcelain works at Sèvres, the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres. In 1855, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society. At Sèvres, he continued work on the thermal properties of matter. He designed sensitive thermometers, hygrometers, hypsometers and calorimeters, and measured the specific heats of many substances and the coefficient of thermal expansion of gases. In the course of this work, he discovered that not all gases expand equally when heated and that Boyle's law is only an approximation, especially at temperatures near a substance's boiling point. Regnault was also an avid amateur photographer. He introduced the use of pyrogallic acid as a developing agent, and was one of the first photographers to use paper negatives. In 1854, he became the founding president of the Société française de photographie. In 1871, his laboratory at Sèvres was destroyed and his son Alex-Georges-Henri Regnault killed, both as a result of the Franco-Prussian War. He retired from science the next year, never recovering from these losses.

• Regnault-Strecker's kurzes Lehrbuch der Chemie. Vieweg, Braunschweig 1851 Digital edition by the University and State Library Düsseldorf • 2. Organische Chemie. 1853 • 1. Anorganische Chemie. 3., verb. Aufl. 1855 • 2. Organische Chemie. 2. Aufl.1857 • 1. Anorganische Chemie. 4. Aufl.1858 • 1. Anorganische Chemie. 9., neu bearb. Aufl. / von Johannes Wislicenus. 1877

Henri Victor Regnault was born on 21 July 1810 in Aachen. Regnault held the nationality of France. Regnault was educated at École polytechnique and Mines ParisTech. Recorded child: Henri Regnault. Regnault worked as physicist, chemist, engineer and photographer, and the authority record catalogues a further 3 occupations under the same name, among them professor, university teacher and physician. Regnault held the posts of president (1854) and director (1854–1871). Regnault worked in French. Regnault died on 19 January 1878 in Paris. Regnault is buried at Montparnasse Cemetery.