Amedeo Avogadro Avogadro was born in Turin from

Amedeo Avogadro

Avogadro was born in Turin from a noble family in 1776. He dedicated himself to physics and mathematics , then called positive philosophy

In 1809 he started teaching them at a “Liceo" high school in Vercelli, where his family lived and had some property

In 1811, he published an article with the title "Essai d'une manière de déterminer les masses relatives des molécules élémentaires des corps, et les proportions selon lesquelles entrent dans cés combinaisons" “Essay on Determining the Relative Masses of the Elementary Molecules of Bodies and the Proportions by Which They Enter These Combinations” which contains Avogadro's hypothesis

Avogadro submitted this essay to Jean-Claude Delamétherie's "Journal de Physique, de Chimie et d'Histoire naturelle" Journal of Physics, Chemistry and Natural History, Piedmont at the time forming part of the First French Empire.

In 1820, Avogadro became a professor of physics at the University of Turin but he was also active in the revolutionary movement of March 1821.

As a result, he lost his chair in 1823 or, as the university officially declared, it was "very glad to allow this interesting scientist to take a rest from heavy teaching duties, in order to be able to give better attention to his researches".

Avogadro was recalled to the university in Turin in 1833, where he taught for other twenty years. He died on 9 July 1856.

Today it is very easy for us to define what an atom or molecule is. In the early times of science there was a lot of debate about this. It was Amedeo Avogadro who helped tell the difference between compounds, molecules and atoms.

You may have heard of Avogadro’s law or Avogadro’s number when studying about molecules Avogadro’s biggest contribution to chemistry was his law on gases, which he first stated in 1811. His law explains that “gases at equal volumes, temperatures and pressures will contain the same number of molecules”

During the time when he was forming his law of gases, atoms and molecules were still not properly defined. It was Avogadro who helped bring clarity to this issue, by explaining that gases were made of compounds of molecules. And that a molecule could be made of two or more atoms.

Avogadro’s number

Avagadro’s number is not obviously his mobile number. It has something to do with his work on atoms and molecules. Avogadro's number is 6. 0221415 × 1023

Originally called Avogadro’s number, it was later named Avogadro’s constant. It is the number of atoms in 12 grams of carbon-12.