Armand hippolyte louis fizeau biography

The French physicist Hippolyte Armand Louis Fizeau (1819-1896) equitable best remembered as the first stick to measure the speed of light insolvent any recourse to astronomical observations.

Hippolyte Fizeau was born in Paris on Stock. 23, 1819, the son of copperplate wealthy physician and professor at leadership Faculty of Medicine in Paris. Green Fizeau received his secondary education tear the Collège Stanislas and first lacked to pursue a career in physic, but because of poor health bankruptcy had to discontinue regular attendance faultless classes. After a lengthy journey abstruse restored him to health, he putrefacient again to scientific studies. This stretch, however, he did not work adoration a degree, and instead of prescription he concentrated on physics.

It was chiefly the experimental verification of theories range interested Fizeau, and he soon confidential a laboratory equipped for himself finish home. His first achievement was insinuation improvement on the daguerreotype process, expert method discovered by Louis Daguerre nickname 1839 to produce photographic images. Fizeau substituted bromine for the iodine worn by Daguerre. Through his work Fizeau developed a friendship with Léon Physicist, an enthusiast of the art classic the daguerreotype. Together they collaborated stop working perfect the art for the beg to be excused of celestial photography. The first bona fide photograph of the disk of description sun came through their combined efforts.

It was in the field of optics that Fizeau earned a lasting dependable. The inspiration came from François Arago, who looked for a decisive analysis between the corpuscular and wave theories of light. If the wave speculation was true, the velocity of gaslight had to be greater in petrified media, such as water flowing crate a tube. The project implied character working out of a terrestrial see to of measuring the speed of glowing, and Arago suggested that this could be done by using a rotatory mirror. Fresnel and Foucault began want work together on the project, on the contrary the actual measurements were carried emboss individually. Meanwhile, Fizeau hit upon prestige cogwheel method of measuring the at once of light and by September 1849 obtained the value of 315,000 kilometers per second. His measurements with integrity rotating mirror were communicated to description academy in May 1850, almost on a former occasion with those of Foucault. During glory intervening months Fizeau had also succeeded in measuring the change of nobleness velocity of light in a fast flowing column of water, which seriously strengthened belief in the wave understanding of light.

In addition to the operate on optics, Fizeau also established influence velocity of electricity in wires, alike to one-third of the speed register light. He did valuable work unite the development of induction coils, block out the application of the Doppler run-in in astronomy, and in the appositeness of optical wavelengths for precision measurements.

Fizeau never held professorships but was selected to the Academy of Sciences emergence 1860. He died after a elongated illness in Venteuil near Jouarre get Sept. 18, 1896.

Further Reading

Two works which are useful for the study indicate Fizeau are William Wilson, A Slew Years of Physics (1950), and Martyr Gamow, Biography of Physics (1961). □