Jean Bernard Léon Foucault (UK: /ʒɒ̃ ˈbɛərnɑːr ˌleɪɒ̃ ˈfuːkoʊ/ FOO-koh, US: /ˌʒɒ̃ bɛər

ˈnɑːr leɪˌɒ̃ fuːˈkoʊ/ foo-KOH, 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 the Earth's rotation. He
also made an early measurement of the speed of light, discovered eddy currents, and
is credited with naming the gyroscope.

The son of a publisher, Foucault was born in Paris on 18 September 1819. After an
education received chiefly at home, he studied medicine, which he abandoned in
favour of physics due to a blood phobia.[1] He first directed his attention to the
improvement of Louis 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 Hippolyte 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.

In 1849, Foucault experimentally demonstrated that absorption and emission lines

appearing at the same wavelength are both due to the same material, with the
difference between the two originating from the temperature of the light source.[2]
[3]

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 corpuscular theory of
light when it showed that light travels more slowly through water than through air.
[4] In 1851, he provided an experimental demonstration of the rotation of the Earth
on its axis (diurnal motion). This experimental setup had been used by Vincenzo
Viviani but became well known to the public by Foucault's work. Foucault achieved
the demonstration by showing the rotation of the plane of oscillation of a long and
heavy pendulum suspended from the roof of the Panthéon, 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.
Diagram of a variant of Foucault's speed of light experiment where a modern laser
is the source of light

In 1857 Foucault invented the polarizer which bears his name,[5] and in the
succeeding year devised a method of testing the mirror of a reflecting telescope to
determine its shape.[6][7] 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. In
the test, light from a point source is focused onto the center of curvature of the
mirror 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 – 10,000 km/s less than that obtained by previous
experimenters and only 0.6% in error of the currently accepted value.