Jean-Baptiste Alfred Perot (; 3 November 1863 – 28 November 1925) was a French
physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...
.
Together with his colleague
Charles Fabry
Maurice Paul Auguste Charles Fabry (; 11 June 1867 – 11 December 1945) was a French physicist.
Life
Fabry graduated from the École Polytechnique in Paris and received his doctorate from the University of Paris in 1892, for his work on i ...
he developed the
Fabry–Pérot interferometer
In optics, a Fabry–Pérot interferometer (FPI) or etalon is an optical cavity made from two parallel reflecting surfaces (i.e.: thin mirrors). Optical waves can pass through the optical cavity only when they are in resonance with it. It is ...
in 1899.
The
French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV of France, Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific me ...
awarded him the
Janssen Medal for 1912. The
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
awarded Fabry and Perot the
Rumford medal
The Rumford Medal is an award bestowed by Britain's Royal Society every alternating year for "an outstandingly important recent discovery in the field of thermal or optical properties of matter made by a scientist working in Europe".
First awar ...
in 1918.
Spelling
There is some confusion about the spelling of Perot's last name. Perot himself used the spelling ''Pérot'' in scientific publications, but according to the French
civil registry
Civil registration is the system by which a government records the vital events (births, marriages, and deaths) of its citizens and residents. The resulting repository or database has different names in different countries and even in differen ...
, his
family name
In some cultures, a surname, family name, or last name is the portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family, tribe or community.
Practices vary by culture. The family name may be placed at either the start of a person's full name ...
was ''Perot'', without accent.
[ (inset "Pérot ou Perot?" on the second page. Translation: "In the previous issue...we wrote "Pérot", after the spelling that Alfred Perot himself used to sign his articles. Several readers pointed out to us that the "official" spelling — that is, the one used on the birth certificate — does not have an accent.")]
References
External links
*
"Alfred Perot, un expérimentateur et inventeur de talent"A good biography, in French.
1863 births
1925 deaths
French physicists
Optical physicists
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