Alexis-Thérèse Petit

…physics was carried out with Alexis-Thérèse Petit. In 1817 they showed that Newton’s law of cooling was true only for small differences in temperature. Their work on the measurement of temperature and the transfer of heat (1818) was honoured by the French Academy.

French scientists Pierre-Louis Dulong and Alexis-Thérèse Petit concerning the specific heat of elements. According to the Dulong-Petit law, the specific heat of all elements is the same on a per atom basis. This law, however, was found to have many exceptions and was not fully understood until the development of…

…French physicists Pierre-Louis Dulong and Alexis-Thérèse Petit demonstrated that measurements of specific heats of substances allow calculation of their atomic weights (see Dulong-Petit law). See also heat capacity.