PHYSICIST

Léon Foucault

1819 - 1868

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Jean Bernard Léon Foucault (UK: , US: ; French: [ʒɑ̃ bɛʁnaʁ leɔ̃ fuko]; 18 September 1819 – 11 February 1868) was a French physicist best known for his demonstration of the Foucault pendulum, a device demonstrating the effect of Earth's rotation. He also made an early measurement of the speed of light, discovered eddy currents, and is credited with naming the gyroscope. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Léon Foucault is the 68th most popular physicist (down from 48th in 2019), the 243rd most popular biography from France (down from 224th in 2019) and the 8th most popular French Physicist.

Léon Foucault is most famous for his pendulum experiment. He used a pendulum to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth.

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Among PHYSICISTS

Among physicists, Léon Foucault ranks 68 out of 851. Before him are Wolfgang Pauli, Andrei Sakharov, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Max Born, Charles Glover Barkla, and Paul Dirac. After him are Norman Foster Ramsey Jr., Philipp Lenard, Lev Landau, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Ludwig Boltzmann, and Max von Laue.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1819, Léon Foucault ranks 6. Before him are Queen Victoria, Albert, Prince Consort, Jacques Offenbach, Gustave Courbet, and Clara Schumann. After him are Sir George Stokes, 1st Baronet, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Báb, Hippolyte Fizeau, and Maria II of Portugal. Among people deceased in 1868, Léon Foucault ranks 2. Before him is Gioachino Rossini. After him are James Buchanan, August Ferdinand Möbius, Ludwig I of Bavaria, Mongkut, Tewodros II, August Schleicher, David Brewster, Alexandre Colonna-Walewski, William T. G. Morton, and Franz Berwald.

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In France

Among people born in France, Léon Foucault ranks 243 out of 6,770. Before him are Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796), Frédéric Mistral (1830), Louis X of France (1289), Nicéphore Niépce (1765), Georges Seurat (1859), and Bernard Arnault (1949). After him are Vilfredo Pareto (1848), George Sand (1804), Gustave Le Bon (1841), Berthe Morisot (1841), Roger Martin du Gard (1881), and Alfred Dreyfus (1859).

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Among PHYSICISTS In France

Among physicists born in France, Léon Foucault ranks 8. Before him are André-Marie Ampère (1775), Henri Becquerel (1852), Louis de Broglie (1892), Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (1736), Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis (1792), and Henry Cavendish (1731). After him are Frédéric Joliot-Curie (1900), Jean Baptiste Perrin (1870), François Arago (1786), Albert Fert (1938), Alfred Kastler (1902), and Hans Bethe (1906).

French born Physicists

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