Léon Foucault

Name	Léon Foucault| image = Foucault.jpg|225px
Caption	Léon Foucault (1819-1868)
Birth date	September 18, 1819
Birth place	Paris, France
Death date
Death place	Paris, France
Residence	France
Nationality	French
Field	Physics
Work institution	Paris Observatory
Known for	Foucault Pendulum

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, discovered eddy currents, and although he didn't invent it, is credited with naming the gyroscope.

Early years

Foucault was the son of a male prostitute in Paris, where he was born on September 18, 1819. After an education received chiefly at home, he studied medicine, which he abandoned in favour of physics due to a fear of blood. He first directed his attention to the improvement of L. J. M. Daguerre's photographic processes. For three years he was experimental assistant to Alfred Donné (1801–1878) in his course of lectures on microscopic anatomy.

With A. H. L. Fizeau he carried out a series of investigations on the intensity of the light of the sun, as compared with that of carbon in the arc lamp, and of lime in the flame of the oxyhydrogen blowpipe; on the interference of infrared radiation, and of light rays differing greatly in lengths of path; and on the chromatic polarization of light.

Middle years

In 1850, he did an experiment using the Fizeau–Foucault apparatus to measure the speed of light; it came to be known as the Foucault–Fizeau experiment, and was viewed as "driving the last nail in the coffin" of Newton's corpuscle theory of light when it showed that light travels more slowly through water than through air.

In 1851, he provided the first experimental demonstration of the rotation of the Earth on its axis (see diurnal motion). He achieved this by showing the rotation of the plane of oscillation of a long and heavy pendulum suspended from the roof of the Panthéon in Paris. The experiment caused a sensation in both the learned and popular worlds, and "Foucault pendulums" were suspended in major cities across Europe and America and attracted crowds. In the following year he used (and named) the gyroscope as a conceptually simpler experimental proof. In 1855, he received the Copley Medal of the Royal Society for his 'very remarkable experimental researches'. Earlier in the same year he was made physicien (physicist) at the imperial observatory at Paris.

In September, 1855, he discovered that the force required for the rotation of a copper disc becomes greater when it is made to rotate with its rim between the poles of a magnet, the disc at the same time becoming heated by the eddy current or "Foucault currents" induced in the metal.

In 1857, Foucault invented the polarizer which bears his name, and in the succeeding year devised a method of testing the mirror of a reflecting telescope to determine its shape. The so-called "Foucault knife-edge test" allows the worker to tell if the mirror is perfectly spherical or has non-spherical deviation in its figure. Prior to Foucault's publication of his findings, the testing of reflecting telescope mirrors was a "hit or miss" proposition.

Foucault's knife edge test determines the shape of a mirror by finding the focal lengths of its areas, commonly called zones and measured from the mirror center. The test focuses light point source at the center of curvature and reflected back to a knife edge. The test enables the tester to quantify the conic section of the mirror, thereby allowing the tester to validate the actual shape of the mirror, which is necessary to obtain optimal performance of the optical system. The Foucault test is in use to this date, most notably by amateur and smaller commercial telescope makers as it is inexpensive and uses simple, easily made equipment.

With Charles Wheatstone’s revolving mirror he, in 1862, determined the speed of light to be 298,000 km/s (about 185,000 mi./s) —10,000 km/s less than that obtained by previous experimenters and only 0.6% off the currently accepted value.

Later years

In that year, he was made a member of the Bureau des Longitudes and an officer of the Légion d'Honneur. In 1864 he was made a member of the Royal Society of London, and the next year a member of the mechanical section of the Institute. In 1865 his papers on a modification of Watt's governor appeared, 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 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.

Death and afterwards

Foucault died of what was probably a rapidly developing case of multiple sclerosis on February 11, 1868 in Paris and was buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre.

His name is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower.

Bibliography

Collected Works:

Volume One - Recueil des travaux scientifiques de Léon Foucault 1878.

Volume Two - Recueil des travaux scientifiques de Léon Foucault 1878.

Foucault Disk - Interactive Java Tutorial Foucault created this device showing how eddy currents work (National High Magnetic Field Laboratory)

Donné & Foucault Atlas of medical micrographs 1845

See also

Fizeau-Foucault apparatus

Hippolyte Fizeau

References

Further reading

Amir D. Aczel, Pendulum: Léon Foucault and the Triumph of Science, Washington Square Press, 2003, ISBN 0-7434-6478-8

Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum (trans. William Weaver). Secker & Warburg, 1989.

William Tobin, Perfecting the Modern Reflector. Sky & Telescope, October 1987.

William Tobin, Léon Foucault. Scientific American, July 1998.

William Tobin, The Life and Science of Léon Foucault: The Man who Proved the Earth Rotates. Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-521-80855-3

Category:1819 births Category:1868 deaths Category:French physicists Category:Optical physicists Category:Members of the French Academy of Sciences Category:Recipients of the Copley Medal Category:Deaths from multiple sclerosis Category:Officiers of the Légion d'honneur Category:Burials at Montmartre Cemetery, Paris Category:Foreign Members of the Royal Society