page_title: Jacques Charles
section_title: First hydrogen balloon
hierarchical_section_title: Jacques Charles / Hydrogen balloon flights / First hydrogen balloon
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Der bei Genosse geplatzt niedergehende Wasserstoffballon des Pariser Prof. Charles erregt unter den Einwohnern einen Aufstand. Unter Führung der Geistlichkeit stürzen sie sich auf das Teufelsgerät und machen ihm der Garaus. Flugblatt aus dem Jahre 1783. English: The balloon built by Jacques Charles and the Robert brothers is attacked by terrified villagers in Gonesse.
context_page_description: Jacques Alexandre César Charles was a French inventor, scientist, mathematician, and balloonist.
  Charles wrote almost nothing about mathematics, and most of what has been credited to him was due to mistaking him with another Jacques Charles, also a member of the Paris Academy of Sciences, entering on May 12, 1785. He was sometimes called Charles the Geometer.
  Charles and the Robert brothers launched the world's first unmanned hydrogen-filled gas balloon in August 1783; then in December 1783, Charles and his co-pilot Nicolas-Louis Robert ascended to a height of about 1,800 feet in a manned gas balloon. Their pioneering use of hydrogen for lift led to this type of balloon being named a Charlière.
  Charles's law, describing how gases tend to expand when heated, was formulated by Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac in 1802, but he credited it to unpublished work by Jacques Charles.
  Charles was elected to the Académie des Sciences in 1795 and subsequently became professor of physics at the Académie de Sciences.
context_section_description: Charles conceived the idea that hydrogen would be a suitable lifting agent for balloons having studied the work of Robert Boyle's Boyle's Law which was published 100 years earlier in 1662, and of his contemporaries Henry Cavendish, Joseph Black and Tiberius Cavallo. He designed the craft and then worked in conjunction with the Robert brothers, Anne-Jean and Nicolas-Louis, to build it in their workshop at the Place des Victoires in Paris. The brothers invented the methodology for the lightweight, airtight gas bag by dissolving rubber in a solution of turpentine and varnished the sheets of silk that were stitched together to make the main envelope. They used alternate strips of red and white silk, but the discolouration of the varnishing/rubberising process left a red and yellow result.
  Jacques Charles and the Robert brothers launched the world's first hydrogen filled balloon on August 27, 1783, from the Champ de Mars, (now the site of the Eiffel Tower) where Ben Franklin was among the crowd of onlookers.  The balloon was comparatively small, a 35 cubic metre sphere of rubberised silk, and only capable of lifting about 9 kg (20 lb). It was filled with hydrogen that had been made by pouring nearly a quarter of a tonne of sulphuric acid onto a half a tonne of scrap iron. The hydrogen gas was fed into the balloon via lead pipes; but as it was not passed through cold water, great difficulty was experienced in filling the balloon completely (the gas was hot when produced, but as it cooled in the balloon, it contracted). Daily progress bulletins were issued on the inflation; and the crowd was so great that on the 26th the balloon was moved secretly by night to the Champ de Mars, a distance of 4 kilometres.
  The balloon flew northwards for 45 minutes, pursued by chasers on horseback, and landed 21 kilometers away in the village of Gonesse where the reportedly terrified local peasants destroyed it with pitchforks or knives. The project was funded by a subscription organised by Barthelemy Faujas de Saint-Fond.
caption: The balloon built by Jacques Charles and the Robert brothers is attacked by terrified villagers in Gonesse. Some of them even started attacking him because they weren't used to things flying.
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