Raoul-Pierre Pictet (4 April 1846 – 27 July 1929) was a
Swiss
Swiss may refer to:
* the adjectival form of Switzerland
*Swiss people
Places
* Swiss, Missouri
*Swiss, North Carolina
* Swiss, West Virginia
*Swiss, Wisconsin
Other uses
* Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports
* Swiss Internation ...
physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
. Pictet is co-credited with French scientist
Louis-Paul Cailletet as the first to produce liquid
oxygen
Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements ...
in 1877.
Biography
Pictet was born in
Geneva
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situa ...
. He served as
professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professo ...
in the university of that city. He devoted himself largely to problems involving the production of low temperatures and the liquefaction and solidification of gases.
[For biographical details, see ]
On December 22, 1877, the
Academy of Sciences
An academy of sciences is a type of learned society or academy (as special scientific institution) dedicated to sciences that may or may not be state funded. Some state funded academies are tuned into national or royal (in case of the Unit ...
in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...
received a telegram from Pictet in Geneva reading as follows: ''Oxygen liquefied to-day under 320 atmospheres and 140 degrees of cold by combined use of sulfurous and carbonic acid.'' This announcement was almost simultaneous with that of
Cailletet who had liquefied oxygen by a completely different process.
Pictet died in Paris in 1929.
Works
*
*
* ''Nouvelles machines frigorifiques basées sur l'emploi de phénomènes physicochimiques'' (1895)
* ''Étude critique du matérialisme et du spiritualisme par la physique expérimentale'' (1896)
* ''L'acétylène'' (1896)
* ''Le carbide'' (1896)
* ''Zur mechanischen Theorie der Explosivstoffe'' (1902)
* ''Die Theorie der Apparate zur Herstellung flüssiger Luft mit Entspannung'' (1903)
*
See also
*
Liquefaction of gases
Liquefaction of gases is physical conversion of a gas into a liquid state (condensation). The liquefaction of gases is a complicated process that uses various compressions and expansions to achieve high pressures and very low temperatures, using ...
*
Timeline of low-temperature technologyPictet Family Archives — includes
family treesince 1344
*Pictet's apparatus
*Production of oxygen under pressure in a retort
*Two pre-cooling refrigeration cycles: 1. SO
2(-10 °C) 2. CO
2 (-78 °C) oxygen flow is pre–cooled by the means of heat exchangers and expands to atmosphere via a hand valve
References
1846 births
1929 deaths
Scientists from Geneva
Swiss physicists
Swiss non-fiction writers
Swiss male writers
Male non-fiction writers
{{physicist-stub