Léon Foucault

Jean Bernard Léon Foucault (18 September 1819–11 February 1868) was a French physicist best known for the invention of the Foucault pendulum, a device demonstrating the effect of the Earth's rotation. He also made an early measurement of the speed of light, invented the gyroscope, and discovered eddy currents. The Foucault crater on the Moon is named after him.

Later years

He was created in that year a member of the Bureau des Longitudes and an officer of the Legion of Honour. In 1864 he was made a foreign member of the Royal Society of London, and next year a member of the mechanical section of the Institute. In 1865 appeared his papers on a modification of Watt's governor, upon which he had for some time been experimenting with a view to making its period of revolution constant, and on a new apparatus for regulating the electric light; and in the following year (Compt. Rend. lxiii.) he showed how, by the deposition of a transparently thin film of silver on the outer side of the object glass of a telescope, the sun could be viewed without injuring the eye. His chief scientific papers are to be found in the Comptes Rendus, 1847—1869.

Related Topics:
1864 - Royal Society - 1865 - Watt - Silver - 1847 - 1869

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