Alexis Thérèse Petit

Alexis Thérèse Petit (October 2, 1791, Vesoul, Haute-Saône - June 21, 1820 in Paris) was a French physicist. Petit is known for his work on the efficiencies of air- and steam-engines, published in 1818. His well-known discussions with the French physicist Sadi Carnot, founder of thermodynamics, may have stimulated Carnot in the development theories of thermodynamic efficiency in heat engines.

Petit was born in Vesoul, Haute-Saône. He is best known for the Dulong-Petit law for the specific heat capacity of metals, which he co-discovered with Pierre Louis Dulong in 1819.

References

• R Fox, Biography in Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York 1970-1990).

• J B Biot, Aléxis Thérèse Petit, Annales de chimie et de physique 16 (1821), 327-335.

• R Fox, The background to the discovery of Dulong and Petit's law, British J. His. Sci. 4 (1968–69), 1-22.

• J Jamin, Etudes sur la chaleur statique : Dulong et Petit, Revue des deux mondes 11 (1855), 375-412.

• J W van Spronsen, The history and prehistory of the law of Dulong and Petit as applied to the determination of atomic weights, Chymia 12 (1967), 157-169.