LOUIS PAUL CAILLETET: THE LIQUEFACTION OF OXYGEN AND THE EMERGENCE OF LOW-TEMPERATURE RESEARCH

作者：Papanelopoulou Faidra^*

来源：Notes and Records-The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science, 2013, 67(4): 355-373.

DOI：10.1098/rsnr.2013.0047

• Louis Paul Cailletet
• liquefaction of oxygen
• nineteenth-century low-temperature research
• Zygmunt Wroblewski
• priority controversies

In 1877 Louis Paul Cailletet in France and Raoul Pictet in Switzerland liquefied oxygen in the form of a mist. The liquefaction of the first of the so-called permanent gases heralded the birth of low-temperature research and is often described in the literature as having started a %26apos;race%26apos; for attaining progressively lower temperatures. In fact, between 1877 and 1908, when helium, the last of the permanent gases, was liquefied, there were many priority disputes-something quite characteristic of the emergence of a new research field. This paper examines Cailletet%26apos;s path to the liquefaction of oxygen, as well as a debate between him and the Polish physicist Zygmunt Wroblewski over the latter%26apos;s contribution to the liquefaction of gases.

• 出版日期2013-12-20