Armand Hippolyte Louis Fizeau (
1819—
1896),
French
physicist, was born at
Paris on
September 23,
1819. His earliest work was concerned with improvements in photographic processes; and then, in association with
J. B. L. Foucault, he engaged in a series of investigations on the
interference of light and heat. In
1849 he published the first results obtained by his method for determining the
speed of light (see
Fizeau-Foucault Apparatus), and in
1850 with E. Gounelle measured the speed of
electricity.
In 1853 he described the employment of the capacitor (then called the condenser) as a means for increasing the efficiency of the induction coil. Subsequently he studied the thermal expansion[?] of solids, and applied the phenomena of interference of light to the measurement of the dilatations of crystals. He died at Venteuil[?] September 18, 1896. He became a member of the French Academy in 1860 and of the Bureau des Longitudes in 1878.
The original text for this article was based on the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.