Graham's law has come to denote an important class of finely divided materials. Around the time Graham did his work, the concept of molecular weight was being established largely through the measurements of gases. Daniel Bernoulli suggested in 1738 in his book Hydrodynamica that heat increases in proportion to the velocity, and thus kinetic energy, of gas particles. Italian physicist Amedeo Avogadro also suggested in 1811 that equal volumes of different gases contain equal numbers of molecules. Thus, the relative molecular weights of two gases are equal to the ratio of weights of equal volumes of the gases. Avogadro's insight together with
History of chemistry for green), who insisted that chlorine was in fact an element. He also showed that oxygen could not be obtained from the substance known as oxymuriatic acid (HCl solution). This discovery overturned Lavoisier's definition of acids as compounds of oxygen. Davy was a popular lecturer and able experimenter. French chemist Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac shared the interest of Lavoisier and others in the quantitative study of the properties of gases. From his first major program of research in 1801–1802, he concluded that equal volumes of all gases expand equally with the same increase in temperature: this conclusion is usually called "Charles's