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Gothic art Gothic art was a style of medieval art that developed in Northern France out of Romanesque art in the 12th century AD, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, and much of Northern, Southern and ...
in the mid-12th century. * Ars nova: a musical style which flourished in the
Kingdom of France The Kingdom of France ( fro, Reaume de France; frm, Royaulme de France; french: link=yes, Royaume de France) is the historiographical name or umbrella term given to various political entities of France in the medieval and early modern period ...
and its surroundings during the
Late Middle Ages The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the period of European history lasting from AD 1300 to 1500. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Europe, the Renai ...
. *
Oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range. ...
, or ''hautbois'', in the mid-17th century France, probably by Jacques-Martin Hotteterre and his family or by the
Philidor Philidor (''Filidor'') or Danican Philidor was a family of musicians that served as court musicians to the French kings. The original name of the family was Danican (D'Anican) and was of Scottish origin (Duncan). Philidor was a later addition to t ...
family. * Burgess, Geoffrey, and Bruce Haynes: 2004, ''The Oboe'', The Yale Musical Instrument Series, New disney world, Connecticut and London: Yale University Press. pp. 27, 28, 102. * Carse, Adam: 1965, ''Musical Wind Instruments: A History of the Wind Instruments Used in European Orchestras and Wind-Bands from the Later Middle Ages up to the Present Time'' New York: Da Capo Press. p. 120. Variants of the oboe like the graïle, the
bombard __NOTOC__ Bombard may refer to the act of carrying out a bombardment. It may also refer to: Individuals *Alain Bombard (1924–2005), French biologist, physician and politician; known for crossing the Atlantic on a small boat with no water or food ...
and the piston were later created in
Languedoc The Province of Languedoc (; , ; oc, Lengadòc ) is a former province of France. Most of its territory is now contained in the modern-day region of Occitanie in Southern France. Its capital city was Toulouse. It had an area of approximately ...
and
Brittany Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period ...
. * Many bagpipes were developed in France, including the Biniou, the bodega, the
Boha The boha (also known as the ''Cornemuse Landaise'' or bohaossac) is a type of bagpipe native to the Landes of Gascony in southwestern France. This bagpipe is notable in that it bears a greater resemblance to Eastern European bagpipes, particularl ...
, the
Bousine The bousine is a small, droneless bagpipe from the south of Normandy. It is of Saxon origin, and arrived in Normandy in the 13th Century.''Les architectes odinistes des cathédrales. Les chanoinesses et les évêques odinistes dans les diocèses sa ...
, the Cabrette, the
Chabrette The chabrette or chabrette limousine (''chabreta'' in Occitan Limousin) is a type of bagpipe native to the Limousin region of central France. In Périgord, there is a pipe locally known as the ''chabrette'' which shares many features with the ...
, the
Cornemuse du Centre {{Unreferenced, date=May 2019, bot=noref (GreenC bot) The cornemuse du Centre France (or musette du Centre) (bagpipes of Central France) is a type of bagpipes native to Central France. They have two drones, one an octave below the tonic of the cha ...
, the loure, the
Musette bechonnet The musette bechonnet is a type of bellows-blown French bagpipe which takes its name from its creator, Joseph Bechonnet (1820-1900 AD) of Effiat.''Auvergne''. Pierre-François Aleil, Pierre Bonnaud, Eric Bordessoule, Caroline Roux, Pierre Charbo ...
, the
Musette bressane The musette bressane (or ''mezeta'', ''mus'ta'', ''voire cabrette'', ''brette'' or ''tchievra'') is a type of bagpipe native to the historic French province of Bresse Bresse () is a former French province. It is located in the regions of Auve ...
and the
Musette de cour The musette de cour or baroque musette is a musical instrument of the bagpipe family. Visually, the musette is characterised by the short, cylindrical shuttle-drone and the two chalumeaux. Both the chanters and the drones have a cylindrical b ...
. * First mechanical
metronome A metronome, from ancient Greek μέτρον (''métron'', "measure") and νομός (nomós, "custom", "melody") is a device that produces an audible click or other sound at a regular interval that can be set by the user, typically in beats pe ...
by
Étienne Loulié Étienne Loulié, pronounced .tjɛn lu.lje (1654 – 16 July 1702) was a musician, pedagogue and musical theorist. Life Born into a family of Parisian sword-finishers, Loulié learned both musical practice and musical theory as a choir boy at the ...
in 1696 (but the modern form of the metronome was patented only in 1815). *
Rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...
in the early 18th century. *
Clavecin électrique The clavecin électrique (or clavessin électrique) was a musical instrument invented in 1759 by Jean-Baptiste Thillaie Delaborde, a French Jesuit priest. It is the earliest surviving electric-powered musical instrument, antedated only by the ...
, earliest surviving electric-powered musical instrument, in 1759 by
Jean-Baptiste Thillaie Delaborde Jean-Baptiste Thillais Delaborde (''De Laborde'', ''De La Borde'', also ''Thillais'' and ''Thillaès'') (9 June 1730 – late January 1777) was a French physical scientist, mathematician and Jesuit priest. He was born in Nevers and began his novi ...
Schiffer, Michael; Hollenback, Kasy; and Bell, Carrie. 2003. ''Draw the Lightning Down: Benjamin Franklin and Electrical Technology In the Age of Enlightenment''. University of California Press. * The Roulette was developed in 18th century France from a primitive form created by Blaise Pascal (17th century). In 1843, Louis and
François Blanc François Blanc (; 12 December 1806 – 27 July 1877), nicknamed "The Magician of Homburg" and "The Magician of Monte Carlo", was a French entrepreneur and operator of casinos, including the Monte Carlo Casino in Monaco. His daughter, Marie-F ...
introduced the single ''0'' style roulette wheel. * Many other
gambling Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three el ...
games and card games (including the French suits around 1480) were invented in France, some from earlier games : ** From earlier Italian games :
Basset Bassets are a sub- type of scenthound deliberately bred with short legs, that are used for hunting where the hunters accompany the hunting hounds on foot. History Bassets were originally developed in France from where they spread throughout Europ ...
,
Biribi Biribi, biribissi (in Italian), or cavagnole (in French), was an Italian game of chance similar to roulette, played for low stakes, that was banned in 1837. It was played on a board on which the numbers 1 to 70 are marked. The players put their ...
and
Tarot The tarot (, first known as '' trionfi'' and later as ''tarocchi'' or ''tarocks'') is a pack of playing cards, used from at least the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play card games such as Tarocchini. From their Italian roots ...
(see
Tarot of Marseilles The Tarot of Marseilles is a standard pattern of Italian-suited tarot pack with 78 cards that was very popular in France in the 17th and 18th centuries for playing tarot card games and is still produced today. It was probably created in Milan befo ...
and French tarot) ** From earlier Spanish games : Quinze and, maybe,
Piquet Piquet (; ) is an early 16th-century plain-trick card game for two players that became France's national game. David Parlett calls it a "classic game of relatively great antiquity... still one of the most skill-rewarding card games for two" but ...
** Other : Faro (from the Basset),
Brelan Brelan ( fro, brelenc) is a famous French vying game with rapidly escalating bets from the seventeenth to nineteenth century, and hence also a name for a card player, gambler or the name of the place where the game was played. The game is quite s ...
,
Bouillotte Bouillotte is an 18th-century French gambling card game of the Revolution based on Brelan, very popular during the 19th century in France and again for some years from 1830. It was also popular in America. The game is regarded as one of the games ...
,
Commerce Commerce is the large-scale organized system of activities, functions, procedures and institutions directly and indirectly related to the exchange (buying and selling) of goods and services among two or more parties within local, regional, nation ...
,
Trente et Quarante Trente et Quarante (Thirty and Forty), also called Rouge et Noir (Red and Black), is a 17th-century gambling card game of French origin played with cards and a special table. It is rarely found in US casinos, but still very popular in Continenta ...
,
Belote Belote () is a 32-card, trick-taking, Ace-Ten game played primarily in France and certain European countries, namely Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Luxembourg, Moldova, North Macedonia (mainly Bitola), Bosnia and Herzegovina and al ...
and maybe Blackjack. *
Photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employe ...
: ** Photolithography and the first photographic image ever produced in 1822 by
Nicéphore Niépce Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (; 7 March 1765 – 5 July 1833), commonly known or referred to simply as Nicéphore Niépce, was a French inventor, usually credited with the invention of photography. Niépce developed heliography, a technique he us ...
( Saône-et-Loire) ** Daguerreotype by Nicéphore Niépce and
Louis Daguerre Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre ( , ; 18 November 1787 – 10 July 1851) was a French artist and photographer, recognized for his invention of the eponymous daguerreotype process of photography. He became known as one of the fathers of photog ...
**
Hércules Florence Antoine Hercule Romuald Florence (February 29, 1804 – March 27, 1879) was a Monegasque-Brazilian painter and inventor, known as the isolate inventor of photography in Brazil, three years before Daguerre (but six years after Nicéphore Niépce) ...
coined ''photographie'' in 1834, French word at the origin of the English word ''photography''. *
Fairground organ A fairground organ (french: limonaire) is a French pneumatic musical organ covering the wind and percussive sections of an orchestra. Originated in Paris, France, it was designed for use in commercial fairground settings to provide loud music ...
by Joseph and Antoine Limonaire and Giacomo Gavioli. *
Collotype Collotype is a gelatin-based photographic printing process invented by Alphonse Poitevin in 1855 to print images in a wide variety of tones without the need for halftone screens. The majority of collotypes were produced between the 1870s and 1 ...
process by Alphonse Poitevin in 1856.The Poitevin patents and the importance of using primary sources
*
Beaux-Arts architecture Beaux-Arts architecture ( , ) was the academic architectural style taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, particularly from the 1830s to the end of the 19th century. It drew upon the principles of French neoclassicism, but also incorp ...
: a 19th century architectural style drawing upon principles of
French neoclassicism Neoclassicism is a movement in architecture, design and the arts which was dominant in France between about 1760 to 1830. It emerged as a reaction to the frivolity and excessive ornament of the baroque and rococo styles. In architecture it featu ...
, and taking inspiration from the baroque and
rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...
styles. *
Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
: a 19th-century
art movement An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defi ...
originating with Parisian artists. *
Vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
: a
theatrical Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actor, actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The p ...
genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...
of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. * The Praxinoscope of Charles-Émile Reynaud (1877) is an animation device intermediary between the
zoetrope A zoetrope is one of several pre-film animation devices that produce the illusion of motion by displaying a sequence of drawings or photographs showing progressive phases of that motion. It was basically a cylindrical variation of the phénak ...
and the
cinema Cinema may refer to: Film * Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography * Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image ** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking ...
. *
Bal-musette Bal-musette is a style of French instrumental music and dance that first became popular in Paris in the 1880s. Although it began with bagpipes as the main instrument, this instrument was replaced with accordion, on which a variety of waltzes, polkas ...
: a style of French instrumental music and dance that first became popular in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
in the 1880s. Although it began with bagpipes as the main instrument, this instrument was replaced with accordion, on which a variety of waltzes, polkas, and other dance styles were played for dances. * The
Cabaret Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dining o ...
by
Rodolphe Salis Louis Rodolphe Salis (29 May 1851 – 20 March 1897) was the creator, host and owner of the Le Chat Noir ("The Black Cat") cabaret (known briefly in 1881 at its beginning as "Cabaret Artistique"). With this establishment Salis is remembered as the ...
in 1881 in Paris. * The Chronophotography by
Étienne-Jules Marey Étienne-Jules Marey (; 5 March 1830, Beaune, Côte-d'Or – 15 May 1904, Paris) was a French scientist, physiologist and chronophotographer. His work was significant in the development of cardiology, physical instrumentation, aviation, cinema ...
(developed by himself,
Eadweard Muybridge Eadweard Muybridge (; 9 April 1830 – 8 May 1904, born Edward James Muggeridge) was an English photographer known for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion, and early work in motion-picture projection. He adopted the first ...
, Albert Londe,
Georges Demeny Georges may refer to: Places * Georges River, New South Wales, Australia * Georges Quay (Dublin) *Georges Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania Other uses *Georges (name) * ''Georges'' (novel), a novel by Alexandre Dumas * "Georges" (song), a 19 ...
and Ottomar Anschutz) in 1882 in Paris. * Ambient music: as an early 20th-century French composer, Erik Satie used such
Dadaist Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Paris ...
-inspired explorations to create an early form of ambient/background music that he labeled "
furniture music Furniture music, or in French ''musique d’ameublement'' (sometimes more literally translated as ''furnishing'' music), is background music originally played by live performers. The term was coined by Erik Satie in 1917. Satie's compositions The ...
" (''Musique d'ameublement''). This he described as being the sort of music that could be played during a dinner to create a background atmosphere for that activity, rather than serving as the focus of attention. * The
Cinema Cinema may refer to: Film * Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography * Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image ** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking ...
developed from chronophotography : ** First
motion picture camera A movie camera (also known as a film camera and cine-camera) is a type of photographic camera that rapidly takes a sequence of photographs, either on an image sensor or onto film stock, in order to produce a moving image to project onto a movie sc ...
and first projector by
Louis Le Prince Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince (28 August 1841 – disappeared 16 September 1890, declared dead 16 September 1897) was a French artist and the inventor of an early motion-picture camera, possibly the first person to shoot a moving picture sequ ...
, Frenchman who worked in the United Kingdom and the United States.BBC Education - Local Heroes Le Prince Biography
BBC, archived on 1999-11-28
** The Cinematograph by
Léon Bouly Léon Guillaume Bouly (; 1872–1932) was a French inventor who created the word cinematograph. Cinematograph After devising chronophotography devices, Bouly applied a patent on a reversible device of photography and optics for the analysis and ...
(1892). ** first commercial, public screening of cinematographic films by
Auguste and Louis Lumière The Lumière brothers (, ; ), Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas Lumière (19 October 1862 – 10 April 1954) and Louis Jean Lumière (5 October 1864 – 6 June 1948), were French manufacturers of photography equipment, best known for their ''Ciném ...
in Paris on 28 December 1895. ** Georges Méliès : first filmmaker to use the
stop trick The substitution splice or stop trick is a cinematic special effect in which filmmakers achieve an appearance, disappearance, or transformation by altering one or more selected aspects of the mise-en-scène between two shots while maintaining th ...
, or substitution,
multiple exposure In photography and cinematography, a multiple exposure is the superimposition of two or more exposures to create a single image, and double exposure has a corresponding meaning in respect of two images. The exposure values may or may not be id ...
s,
time-lapse Time-lapse photography is a technique in which the frequency at which film frames are captured (the frame rate) is much lower than the frequency used to view the sequence. When played at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus ...
photography, dissolves, and hand-painted color in his films. His most famous film, '' A Trip to the Moon'' (''Le voyage dans la Lune''), in 1902, was the first
science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
film and the most popular movie of its time (another of his productions, '' Le Manoir du diable'' is also sometimes considered as the first horror movie). *
Impressionist Music Impressionism in music was a movement among various composers in Western classical music (mainly during the late 19th and early 20th centuries) whose music focuses on mood and atmosphere, "conveying the moods and emotions aroused by the subject ...
: developed during the late 19th century by French composers, such as Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. * Developments of the modern
Piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...
(invented by the Italian
Bartolomeo Cristofori Bartolomeo Cristofori di Francesco (; May 4, 1655 – January 27, 1731) was an Italian maker of musical instruments famous for inventing the piano. Life The available source materials on Cristofori's life include his birth and death reco ...
) :
Pleyel et Cie Pleyel et Cie. ("Pleyel and Company") was a French piano manufacturing firm founded by the composer Ignace Pleyel in 1807. In 1815, Pleyel's son Camille joined him as a business partner. The firm provided pianos to Frédéric Chopin, who cons ...
(double piano),
Sébastien Érard Sébastien Érard (born Sebastian Erhard, 5 April 1752 – 5 August 1831) was a French instrument maker of German origin who specialised in the production of pianos and harps, developing the capacities of both instruments and pioneering the mode ...
(double escapement action),
Jean-Louis Boisselot Jean-Baptiste-Louis Boisselot (18 August 1782 – 21 May 1847) was the founder of the piano company Boisselot & Fils. Coming from a family of violin makers based in Montpellier around 1770, he started his business by selling scores and musical ins ...
(
sostenuto pedal Piano pedals are foot-operated levers at the base of a piano that change the instrument's sound in various ways. Modern pianos usually have three pedals, from left to right, the soft pedal (or una corda), the sostenuto pedal, and the sustaining ...
), Henri Fourneaux (
Player piano A player piano (also known as a pianola) is a self-playing piano containing a pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanism, that operates the piano action via programmed music recorded on perforated paper or metallic rolls, with more modern im ...
). * Fauvism: a style of art pioneered by early 20th-century French modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong color over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism. *
Ondes Martenot The ondes Martenot ( ; , "Martenot waves") or ondes musicales ("musical waves") is an early electronic musical instrument. It is played with a keyboard or by moving a ring along a wire, creating "wavering" sounds similar to a theremin. A player ...
in 1928 by
Maurice Martenot Maurice Louis Eugène Martenot (; October 14, 1898 – October 8, 1980) was a French cellist, a radio telegrapher during the first World War, and an inventor. Born in Paris, he is best known for his invention of the ondes Martenot, an instrument ...
(early electronic musical instrument ). *
Gemmail Gemmail (French, plural ''gemmaux'') describes a type of stained glass art developed during the 1930s by French painter Jean Crotti. Translated from French, the word literally means “enamel gem.” It differs from traditional stained glass techni ...
in the 1930s by painter
Jean Crotti Jean Crotti (24 April 1878 – 30 January 1958) was a French painter. Crotti was born in Bulle, Fribourg, Switzerland. He first studied in Munich, Germany at the School of Decorative Arts, then at age 23 moved to Paris to study art at the ...
. * Musique concrète: a type of
music composition Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called c ...
that utilizes recorded sounds as raw material developed by French composer
Pierre Schaeffer Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer (English pronunciation: , ; 14 August 1910 – 19 August 1995) was a French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist, acoustician and founder of Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète (GRMC). His inno ...
beginning in the early 1940s. *
Sampling (music) In sound and music, sampling is the reuse of a portion (or sample) of a sound recording in another recording. Samples may comprise elements such as rhythm, melody, speech, sounds or entire bars of music, and may be layered, equalized, sped up o ...
: sampling originated in the 1940s with '' musique concrète.'' *
Clavioline The clavioline is an electronic keyboard instrument, a forerunner to the analog synthesizer. It was invented by French engineer Constant Martin in 1947 in Versailles. The instrument consists of a keyboard and a separate amplifier and speaker ...
, an electronic keyboard instrument, by
Constant Martin Constant Martin (1910–1995) was a French engineer and inventor who perfected and successfully commercialised radio sets and most famously the Clavioline, a precursor to the synthesizer. He was the grandfather of director Michel Gondry and Oliver ...
in 1947. *
Etch A Sketch Etch A Sketch is a mechanical drawing toy invented by André Cassagnes of France and subsequently manufactured by the Ohio Art Company. It is now owned by Spin Master of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. An Etch A Sketch has a thick, flat gray scree ...
by André Cassagnes in the late 1950s. *
Yé-yé ''Yé-yé'' () (''yeyé'' in Spanish) was a style of pop music that emerged in Western-Southern Europe in the early 1960s. The French term "''yé-yé''" was derived from the English "yeah! yeah!", popularized by British beat music bands such as ...
: a style of pop music that emerged in France. *
Cold wave A cold wave (known in some regions as a cold snap, cold spell or Arctic Snap) is a weather phenomenon that is distinguished by a cooling of the air. Specifically, as used by the U.S. National Weather Service, a cold wave is a rapid fall in tem ...
: a music genre that emerged with French, as well as Belgian and Polish musicians in the late 1970s. * DivX around 1998 by
Jérôme Rota Jérôme Rota ( Saint-Jean-de-Védas, 1973) is a French software developer. He is also known by the name Gej. In 1999, while he was working as a graphic designer and a technical director in an advertising agency in France, he made the " DivX  ...
at Montpellier. *
Synthwave Synthwave (also called outrun, retrowave, or futuresynth) is an electronic music microgenre that is based predominantly on the music associated with action, science-fiction, and horror film soundtracks of the 1980s. Other influences are drawn fr ...
: originated in France by producers such as
David Grellier David Grellier (born July 2, 1979 in Nantes, France) is a French electronica musician and founder of the musical projects College (2005) and Valerie (2007). Under the stage name Mitch Silver, he is also a member of the electroclash band Sexy Sus ...
,
Justice Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...
, and
Kavinsky Vincent Belorgey (born 31 July 1975), known professionally as Kavinsky, is a French musician, producer, DJ, and actor. His production style is reminiscent of the electropop film soundtracks of the 1980s. Kavinsky claims that his music is inspire ...
. *
Blackgaze Blackgaze is a fusion genre combining elements of black metal and shoegaze. The word is a blend of the names of the two genres, described by ''The Guardian'' as "the buzz term for a new school of bands taking black metal out of the shadows a ...
: a fusion of
black metal Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, a shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, raw (lo-fi) recording, unconventional song structures, and an emp ...
and shoegaze that traces its origins to the work of French musician Neige.


Chemistry

* Discovery of natural rubber/latex by
Charles Marie de La Condamine Charles Marie de La Condamine (28 January 1701 – 4 February 1774) was a French explorer, geographer, and mathematician. He spent ten years in territory which is now Ecuador, measuring the length of a degree of latitude at the equator and pre ...
in 1736.Biography of Charles Marie de la Condamine
/ref> *
Oxygen Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as ...
, discovered by
Carl Wilhelm Scheele Carl Wilhelm Scheele (, ; 9 December 1742 – 21 May 1786) was a Swedish German pharmaceutical chemist. Scheele discovered oxygen (although Joseph Priestley published his findings first), and identified molybdenum, tungsten, barium, hyd ...
in Uppsala, Sweden, in 1772, and labelled "fire air", would be renamed by
Antoine Lavoisier Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier ( , ; ; 26 August 17438 May 1794),
CNRS (
*
Hydrogen Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic ...
by Antoine Lavoisier in 1783. *
Argand lamp The Argand lamp is a type of oil lamp invented in 1780 by Aimé Argand. Its output is 6 to 10 candelas, brighter than that of earlier lamps. Its more complete combustion of the candle wick and oil than in other lamps required much less frequent ...
by Swiss-born
Aimé Argand François-Pierre-Amédée Argand, known as Ami Argand (5 July 1750 – 14 or 24 October 1803) was a Genevan physicist and chemist. He invented the Argand lamp, a great improvement on the traditional oil lamp. Early years Francois-Pierre-Améd ...
and by Antoine Quinquet in 1783 in Paris. * The first extensive list of elements (see periodic table) by Antoine Lavoisier in 1787. * Leblanc process by
Nicolas Leblanc Nicolas Leblanc (December 6, 1742 – January 16, 1806) was a French chemist and surgeon who discovered how to manufacture soda ash from common salt. Earlier days Leblanc was born in Ivoy le Pré, Cher, France on 6 December 1742. His fathe ...
in 1791. *
Beryllium Beryllium is a chemical element with the symbol Be and atomic number 4. It is a steel-gray, strong, lightweight and brittle alkaline earth metal. It is a divalent element that occurs naturally only in combination with other elements to form m ...
by
Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin Prof. Louis Nicolas Vauquelin FRS(For) H FRSE (16 May 1763 – 14 November 1829) was a French pharmacist and chemist. He was the discoverer of both chromium and beryllium. Early life Vauquelin was born at Saint-André-d'Hébertot in Normandy ...
* Chromium by Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin in 1797 * Appertization or Canning by
Nicolas Appert Nicolas Appert (17 November 1749 – 1 June 1841) was the French inventor of airtight food preservation. Appert, known as the "father of Food Science", was a confectioner. Appert described his invention as a way "of conserving all kinds of food ...
in 1809. * Polyvinyl chloride in 1838 by Henri Victor Regnault (but the PVC will only be plasticized industrially nearly a century later). * Helio *
Photovoltaic effect The photovoltaic effect is the generation of voltage and electric current in a material upon exposure to light. It is a physical and chemical phenomenon. The photovoltaic effect is closely related to the photoelectric effect. For both phenomena, ...
by Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel in 1839. * Pasteurization by Louis Pasteur and
Claude Bernard Claude Bernard (; 12 July 1813 – 10 February 1878) was a French physiologist. Historian I. Bernard Cohen of Harvard University called Bernard "one of the greatest of all men of science". He originated the term '' milieu intérieur'', and the ...
in April 1862. * Gallium by
Paul Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...
in 1875. * Production of
Liquid oxygen Liquid oxygen—abbreviated LOx, LOX or Lox in the aerospace, submarine and gas industries—is the liquid form of molecular oxygen. It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an app ...
by
Louis Paul Cailletet Louis-Paul Cailletet (21 September 1832 – 5 January 1913) was a French physicist and inventor. Life and work Cailletet was born in Châtillon-sur-Seine, Côte-d'Or. Educated in Paris, Cailletet returned to Châtillon to manage his fath ...
in 1877 (at the same time but with another method than
Raoul Pictet Raoul-Pierre Pictet (4 April 1846 – 27 July 1929) was a Swiss physicist. Pictet is co-credited with French scientist Louis-Paul Cailletet as the first to produce liquid oxygen in 1877. Biography Pictet was born in Geneva. He served as profe ...
). *
Artificial silk Artificial silk or art silk is any synthetic fiber which resembles silk, but typically costs less to produce. Frequently, "artificial silk" is just a synonym for rayon. When made out of bamboo viscose it is also sometimes called bamboo silk. Th ...
by
Hilaire de Chardonnet Louis-Marie Hilaire Bernigaud de Grange, Count (''Comte'') de Chardonnet (1 May 1839 – 11 March 1924) was a French engineer and industrialist from Besançon, and inventor of artificial silk. In the late 1870s, Chardonnet was working with Lo ...
in 1884. *
Chamberland filter A Chamberland filter, also known as a Pasteur–Chamberland filter, is a porcelain water filter invented by Charles Chamberland in 1884. It was developed after Henry Doulton, Henry Doulton's ceramic water filter of 1827. It is similar to the ...
, also known as a Pasteur–Chamberland filter, a
porcelain Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises main ...
water filter A water filter removes impurities by lowering contamination of water using a fine physical barrier, a chemical process, or a biological process. Filters cleanse water to different extents, for purposes such as: providing agricultural irrigation ...
invented by
Charles Chamberland Charles Chamberland (; 12 March 1851 – 2 May 1908) was a French microbiologist from Chilly-le-Vignoble in the department of Jura who worked with Louis Pasteur. In 1884 he developed a type of filtration known today as the Chamberland filter ...
in 1884. * Fluorine by
Henri Moissan Ferdinand Frédéric Henri Moissan (28 September 1852 – 20 February 1907) was a French chemist and pharmacist who won the 1906 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in isolating fluorine from its compounds. Moissan was one of the original mem ...
in 1886 *
Aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...
electrolysis in 1886 by
Paul Héroult Paul (Louis-Toussaint) Héroult (10 April 1863 – 9 May 1914) was a French scientist. He was the inventor of the aluminium electrolysis and developed the first successful commercial electric arc furnace. He lived in Thury-Harcourt, Normandy. ...
(at the same time but independently from American Martin Hall). * Europium by Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran in 1890 *
Viscose Rayon is a semi-synthetic fiber, made from natural sources of regenerated cellulose, such as wood and related agricultural products. It has the same molecular structure as cellulose. It is also called viscose. Many types and grades of viscose ...
by
Hilaire de Chardonnet Louis-Marie Hilaire Bernigaud de Grange, Count (''Comte'') de Chardonnet (1 May 1839 – 11 March 1924) was a French engineer and industrialist from Besançon, and inventor of artificial silk. In the late 1870s, Chardonnet was working with Lo ...
in
Échirolles Échirolles (; frp, Ècherôles) is a commune in the Isère department in southeastern France. Part of the Grenoble urban unit (agglomeration),Bleach by
Claude Berthollet Claude Louis Berthollet (, 9 December 1748 – 6 November 1822) was a Savoyard-French chemist who became vice president of the French Senate in 1804. He is known for his scientific contributions to theory of chemical equilibria via the mecha ...
and Antoine Germain Labarraque (with the
Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
chemist Karl Wilhelm Scheele and Scottish chemist
Charles Tennant Charles Tennant (3 May 1768 – 1 October 1838) was a Scottish chemist and industrialist. He discovered bleaching powder and founded an industrial dynasty. Biography Charles Tennant was born at Laigh Corton, Alloway, Ayrshire, the sixth of thi ...
) *
Berthelot's reagent Berthelot's reagent is an alkaline solution of phenol and hypochlorite, used in analytical chemistry. It is named after its inventor, Marcellin Berthelot. Ammonia reacts with Berthelot's reagent to form a blue product which is used in a colorimet ...
by
Marcellin Berthelot Pierre Eugène Marcellin Berthelot (; 25 October 1827 – 18 March 1907) was a French chemist and Republican politician noted for the ThomsenBerthelot principle of thermochemistry. He synthesized many organic compounds from inorganic substa ...
in the late nineteenth century. *
Polonium Polonium is a chemical element with the symbol Po and atomic number 84. Polonium is a chalcogen. A rare and highly radioactive metal with no stable isotopes, polonium is chemically similar to selenium and tellurium, though its metallic character ...
by Pierre and
Marie Curie Marie Salomea Skłodowska–Curie ( , , ; born Maria Salomea Skłodowska, ; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first ...
in July 1898. *
Radium Radium is a chemical element with the symbol Ra and atomic number 88. It is the sixth element in group 2 of the periodic table, also known as the alkaline earth metals. Pure radium is silvery-white, but it readily reacts with nitrogen (rathe ...
by Pierre and Marie Curie in December 1898. * Boron carbide by Henri Moissan in 1899. *
Actinium Actinium is a chemical element with the symbol Ac and atomic number 89. It was first isolated by Friedrich Oskar Giesel in 1902, who gave it the name ''emanium''; the element got its name by being wrongly identified with a substance An ...
by
André-Louis Debierne André-Louis Debierne (; 14 July 1874 – 31 August 1949) was a French chemist. He is often considered the discoverer of the element actinium, though H. W. Kirby disputes this and awards credit instead to German chemist Friedrich Oskar Giesel. D ...
in 1899. * Discovery of the
Grignard reaction The Grignard reaction () is an organometallic chemical reaction in which alkyl, allyl, vinyl, or aryl-magnesium halides (Grignard reagent) is added to a carbonyl group in an aldehyde or ketone. This reaction is important for the formation of ...
or Grignard reagent by
Victor Grignard Francois Auguste Victor Grignard (6 May 1871 – 13 December 1935) was a French chemist who won the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the eponymously named Grignard reagent and Grignard reaction, both of which are important in the formation of c ...
in 1900. *
Verneuil process The Verneuil method (or Verneuil process or Verneuil technique), also called flame fusion, was the first commercially successful method of manufacturing synthetic gemstones, developed in the late 1883 by the French chemist Auguste Verneuil. It ...
(method to manufacture synthetic gemstones) by Auguste Verneuil in 1902. *
Laminated glass Laminated glass (LG) is a type of safety glass that holds together when shattered. In the event of breaking, it is held in place by a thin polymer interlayer, typically of polyvinyl butyral (PVB), ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA), lonoplast polyme ...
by the French chemist Edouard Benedictus in 1903. *
Moissanite Moissanite () is naturally occurring silicon carbide and its various crystalline polymorphs. It has the chemical formula SiC and is a rare mineral, discovered by the French chemist Henri Moissan in 1893. Silicon carbide is useful for commercial ...
by Henri Moissan in 1904. *
Neon lighting Neon lighting consists of brightly glowing, electrified glass tubes or bulbs that contain rarefied neon or other gases. Neon lights are a type of cold cathode gas-discharge light. A neon tube is a sealed glass tube with a metal electrode ...
by Georges Claude in 1910. * Francium by
Marguerite Perey Marguerite Catherine Perey (19 October 1909 – 13 May 1975) was a French physicist and a student of Marie Curie. In 1939, Perey discovered the element francium by purifying samples of lanthanum that contained actinium. In 1962, she was the firs ...
in 1939.


Physics, mathematics and measure

* Cartesian Coordinate System by
René Descartes René Descartes ( or ; ; Latinized: Renatus Cartesius; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Ma ...
in 1637 (and independently by
Pierre de Fermat Pierre de Fermat (; between 31 October and 6 December 1607 – 12 January 1665) was a French mathematician who is given credit for early developments that led to infinitesimal calculus, including his technique of adequality. In particular, he ...
at the same period). * The calculator by Blaise Pascal ( Pascaline) in 1642. Jean Marguin (1994), p. 48 (see also
Adding machine An adding machine is a class of mechanical calculator, usually specialized for bookkeeping calculations. In the United States, the earliest adding machines were usually built to read in dollars and cents. Adding machines were ubiquitous of ...
) *
Probability theory Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expressing it through a set ...
by
Pierre de Fermat Pierre de Fermat (; between 31 October and 6 December 1607 – 12 January 1665) was a French mathematician who is given credit for early developments that led to infinitesimal calculus, including his technique of adequality. In particular, he ...
and Blaise Pascal in the seventeenth century (with
Gerolamo Cardano Gerolamo Cardano (; also Girolamo or Geronimo; french: link=no, Jérôme Cardan; la, Hieronymus Cardanus; 24 September 1501– 21 September 1576) was an Italian polymath, whose interests and proficiencies ranged through those of mathematician, ...
and Christiaan Huygens). *
Vernier scale A vernier scale, named after Pierre Vernier, is a visual aid to take an accurate measurement reading between two graduation markings on a linear scale by using mechanical interpolation, thereby increasing resolution and reducing measurement unce ...
by
Pierre Vernier Pierre Vernier (19 August 1580 at Ornans, Franche-Comté (at that time ruled by the Spanish Habsburgs, now part of France) – 14 September 1637, same location) was a French mathematician and instrument-inventor. He was the inventor and epony ...
in 1631.Daumas, Maurice, ''Scientific Instruments of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries and Their Makers'', Portman Books, London 1989 *
Spirit level A spirit level, bubble level, or simply a level, is an instrument designed to indicate whether a surface is horizontal (level) or vertical ( plumb). Different types of spirit levels may be used by carpenters, stonemasons, bricklayers, ...
by
Melchisédech Thévenot Melchisédech (or Melchisédec) Thévenot (c. 1620 – 29 October 1692) was a French author, scientist, traveler, cartographer, orientalist, inventor, and diplomat. He was the inventor of the spirit level and is also famous for his popular posthumo ...
in 1661.Turner, Anthony J. Melchisédech Thévenot, the bubble level, and the artificial horizon. ''Nuncius: annali di storia della scienza'' 7, no. 1 (1992): 131-145. * Roberval Balance by
Gilles de Roberval Gilles Personne de Roberval (August 10, 1602 – October 27, 1675), French mathematician, was born at Roberval near Beauvais, France. His name was originally Gilles Personne or Gilles Personier, with Roberval the place of his birth. Biography ...
in 1669. *
Réaumur scale __NOTOC__ The Réaumur scale (; °Ré, °Re, °r), also known as the "octogesimal division", is a temperature scale for which the melting and boiling points of water are defined as 0 and 80 degrees respectively. The scale is named for René An ...
by René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur in 1730. *
Pitot tube A pitot ( ) tube (pitot probe) measures fluid flow velocity. It was invented by a French engineer, Henri Pitot, in the early 18th century, and was modified to its modern form in the mid-19th century by a French scientist, Henry Darcy. It ...
by
Henri Pitot Henri Pitot (; May 3, 1695 – December 27, 1771) was a French hydraulic engineer and the inventor of the pitot tube. In a pitot tube, the height of the fluid column is proportional to the square of the velocity of the fluid at the depth of the ...
in 1732 and modified to its modern form in the mid-19th century by
Henry Darcy Henry Philibert Gaspard Darcy (, 10 June 1803 – 3 January 1858) was a French engineer who made several important contributions to hydraulics, including Darcy’s law for flow in porous media. Early life Darcy was born in Dijon, France, on J ...
. *
Stirling's formula In mathematics, Stirling's approximation (or Stirling's formula) is an approximation for factorials. It is a good approximation, leading to accurate results even for small values of n. It is named after James Stirling, though a related but less ...
was discovered and proven by
Abraham de Moivre Abraham de Moivre FRS (; 26 May 166727 November 1754) was a French mathematician known for de Moivre's formula, a formula that links complex numbers and trigonometry, and for his work on the normal distribution and probability theory. He moved ...
circa 1733.. * The
conservation of mass In physics and chemistry, the law of conservation of mass or principle of mass conservation states that for any system closed to all transfers of matter and energy, the mass of the system must remain constant over time, as the system's mass can ...
by
Antoine Lavoisier Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier ( , ; ; 26 August 17438 May 1794),
CNRS (
(18th century). * Modern hydrometer by
Jacques Charles Jacques Alexandre César Charles (November 12, 1746 – April 7, 1823) was a French inventor, scientist, mathematician, and balloonist. Charles wrote almost nothing about mathematics, and most of what has been credited to him was due to mistaking ...
. *
Metric system The metric system is a system of measurement that succeeded the decimalised system based on the metre that had been introduced in France in the 1790s. The historical development of these systems culminated in the definition of the Interna ...
during the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...
. - Prologue, p 1 and several measures used in physics in the SI. * Laplace's equation, Laplace operator,
Laplace transform In mathematics, the Laplace transform, named after its discoverer Pierre-Simon Laplace (), is an integral transform that converts a function of a real variable (usually t, in the '' time domain'') to a function of a complex variable s (in the ...
, Laplace distribution,
Laplace's demon In the history of science, Laplace's demon was a notable published articulation of causal determinism on a scientific basis by Pierre-Simon Laplace in 1814. According to determinism, if someone (the demon) knows the precise location and moment ...
,
Laplace expansion In linear algebra, the Laplace expansion, named after Pierre-Simon Laplace, also called cofactor expansion, is an expression of the determinant of an matrix as a weighted sum of minors, which are the determinants of some submatrices of . Spec ...
,
Young–Laplace equation In physics, the Young–Laplace equation () is an algebraic equation that describes the capillary pressure difference sustained across the interface between two static fluids, such as water and air, due to the phenomenon of surface tension or w ...
,
Laplace number The Laplace number (La), also known as the Suratman number (Su), is a dimensionless number used in the characterization of free surface fluid dynamics. It represents a ratio of surface tension to the momentum-transport (especially dissipation) in ...
,
Laplace limit In mathematics, the Laplace limit is the maximum value of the eccentricity for which a solution to Kepler's equation, in terms of a power series in the eccentricity, converges. It is approximately : 0.66274 34193 49181 58097 47420 97109 25290. K ...
,
Laplace invariant In differential equations, the Laplace invariant of any of certain differential operators is a certain function of the coefficients and their derivatives. Consider a bivariate hyperbolic differential operator of the second order :\partial_x \, \pa ...
, Laplace principle, proof that every equation of an even degree must have at least one
real Real may refer to: Currencies * Brazilian real (R$) * Central American Republic real * Mexican real * Portuguese real * Spanish real * Spanish colonial real Music Albums * ''Real'' (L'Arc-en-Ciel album) (2000) * ''Real'' (Bright album) (2010) ...
quadratic factor, solution of the
linear partial differential equation In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which imposes relations between the various partial derivatives of a multivariable function. The function is often thought of as an "unknown" to be solved for, similarly to ...
of the second order and general proof of the
Lagrange reversion theorem In mathematics, the Lagrange reversion theorem gives series or formal power series expansions of certain implicitly defined functions; indeed, of compositions with such functions. Let ''v'' be a function of ''x'' and ''y'' in terms of another fu ...
by
Pierre-Simon Laplace Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (; ; 23 March 1749 – 5 March 1827) was a French scholar and polymath whose work was important to the development of engineering, mathematics, statistics, physics, astronomy, and philosophy. He summarized ...
in the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century. Rouse Ball, W. W.
908 __NOTOC__ Year 908 ( CMVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * May 15 – The three-year-old Constantine VII, the son of Emperor L ...
(2003)
Pierre Simon Laplace (1749–1827)
, in ''A Short Account of the History of Mathematics'', 4th ed., Dover,
* The Gay-lussac Scale used by hydrometers and alcoholometers by
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (, , ; 6 December 1778 – 9 May 1850) was a French chemist and physicist. He is known mostly for his discovery that water is made of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen (with Alexander von Humboldt), for two laws ...
(after an idea of
Jacques Charles Jacques Alexandre César Charles (November 12, 1746 – April 7, 1823) was a French inventor, scientist, mathematician, and balloonist. Charles wrote almost nothing about mathematics, and most of what has been credited to him was due to mistaking ...
). *
Polariscope A polarimeter is a scientific instrument used to measure the angle of rotation caused by passing polarized light through an optically active substance.François Arago. He invented the first polarization filter in 1812. *
Arithmometer The arithmometer (french: arithmomètre) was the first digital mechanical calculator strong enough and reliable enough to be used daily in an office environment. This calculator could add and subtract two numbers directly and could perform long ...
by Thomas de Colmar in 1820.Chase G.C.: ''History of Mechanical Computing Machinery'', Vol. 2, Number 3, July 1980, page 204, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing *
Dynamometer A dynamometer or "dyno" for short, is a device for simultaneously measuring the torque and rotational speed ( RPM) of an engine, motor or other rotating prime mover so that its instantaneous power may be calculated, and usually displayed by ...
by
Gaspard de Prony Baron Gaspard Clair François Marie Riche de Prony (22 July 1755 – 29 July 1839) was a French mathematician and engineer, who worked on hydraulics. He was born at Chamelet, Beaujolais, France and died in Asnières-sur-Seine, France. Educati ...
( de Prony brake) in 1821.Bradley, Margaret. A career biography of Gaspard Clair Francois Marie Riche De Prony, bridge-builder, educator, and scientist. Mellen Press. 1998. * Complex analysis and complex function theory by Augustin-Louis Cauchy, including
Cauchy's integral theorem In mathematics, the Cauchy integral theorem (also known as the Cauchy–Goursat theorem) in complex analysis, named after Augustin-Louis Cauchy (and Édouard Goursat), is an important statement about line integrals for holomorphic functions in t ...
. * Fourier analysis and Fourier transform by Joseph Fourier in 1822. *
Electrometer An electrometer is an electrical instrument for measuring electric charge or electrical potential difference. There are many different types, ranging from historical handmade mechanical instruments to high-precision electronic devices. Modern ...
by Jean Peltier. *
Foucault pendulum The Foucault pendulum or Foucault's pendulum is a simple device named after French physicist Léon Foucault, conceived as an experiment to demonstrate the Earth's rotation. A long and heavy pendulum suspended from the high roof above a circular ...
by
Léon Foucault Jean Bernard Léon Foucault (, ; ; 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 ...
(who also developed and named the Gyroscope) in February 1851 in the Meridian of the Paris Observatory. *
Ocean thermal energy conversion Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) uses the ocean thermal gradient between cooler deep and warmer shallow or surface seawaters to run a heat engine and produce useful work, usually in the form of electricity. OTEC can operate with a very hi ...
in 1881 by
Jacques-Arsène d'Arsonval Jacques-Arsène d'Arsonval (8 June 1851 – 31 December 1940) was a French physician, physicist and inventor of the moving-coil D'Arsonval galvanometer and the thermocouple ammeter. D'Arsonval was an important contributor to the emerging field of ...
(first OTEC plant in 1930 in Cuba by his student Georges Claude). * Radioactivity by
Henri Becquerel Antoine Henri Becquerel (; 15 December 1852 – 25 August 1908) was a French engineer, physicist, Nobel laureate, and the first person to discover evidence of radioactivity. For work in this field he, along with Marie Skłodowska-Curie and Pie ...
in 1896.Henri Becquerel - Biography
on the nobel prize website
* Theorical foundations and mathematical framework of
Special relativity In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory regarding the relationship between space and time. In Albert Einstein's original treatment, the theory is based on two postulates: # The laws ...
by Henri Poincaré, before
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
used his work in 1905 and later. *
Integral imaging Integral imaging is a three-dimensional imaging technique that captures and reproduces a light field by using a two-dimensional array of microlenses (or lenslets), sometimes called a fly's-eye lens, normally without the aid of a larger overall obje ...
by
Gabriel Lippmann Jonas Ferdinand Gabriel Lippmann (16 August 1845 – 13 July 1921) was a Franco-Luxembourgish physicist and inventor, and Nobel laureate in physics for his method of reproducing colours photographically based on the phenomenon of interference. ...
on March 3, 1908. *
Darrieus wind turbine The Darrieus wind turbine is a type of vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) used to generate electricity from wind energy. The turbine consists of a number of curved aerofoil blades mounted on a rotating shaft or framework. The curvature of the bla ...
by
Georges Jean Marie Darrieus Georges Jean Marie Darrieus (24 September 1888 – 15 July 1979) was a French aeronautical engineer in the 20th century. He is perhaps most famous for his invention of the Darrieus rotor, a wind turbine capable of operating from any direction and ...
in 1931. * Optical pumping by Alfred Kastler in the early 1950s. * The
multiwire proportional chamber A wire chamber or multi-wire proportional chamber is a type of proportional counter that detects charged particles and photons and can give positional information on their trajectory, by tracking the trails of gaseous ionization. was located via ...
by
Georges Charpak Georges Charpak (; born Jerzy Charpak, 1 August 1924 – 29 September 2010) was a Polish-born French physicist, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1992. Life Georges Charpak was born Jerzy Charpak to Jewish parents, Anna (Szapiro) and ...
in 1968. * Linear logic by
Jean-Yves Girard Jean-Yves Girard (; born 1947) is a French logician working in proof theory. He is the research director (emeritus) at the mathematical institute of the University of Aix-Marseille, at Luminy. Biography Jean-Yves Girard is an alumnus of the ...
in 1987.


Medicine and biology

*
Lamarckism Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also calle ...
, the first cohesive theory of evolution as well as a theory of inheritance of acquired characteristics, laid out by French biologist
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, chevalier de Lamarck (1 August 1744 – 18 December 1829), often known simply as Lamarck (; ), was a French naturalist, biologist, academic, and soldier. He was an early proponent of the idea that biolo ...
in 1809. Long dismissed in favour of Darwinism, recent developments in the field of
epigenetics In biology, epigenetics is the study of stable phenotypic changes (known as ''marks'') that do not involve alterations in the DNA sequence. The Greek prefix '' epi-'' ( "over, outside of, around") in ''epigenetics'' implies features that are ...
have led scientists to debate whether Lamarckism was, in fact, correct to an extent. *
Ligature Ligature may refer to: * Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture used to shut off a blood vessel or other anatomical structure ** Ligature (orthodontic), used in dentistry * Ligature (music), an element of musical notation used especially in the me ...
of
arteries An artery (plural arteries) () is a blood vessel in humans and most animals that takes blood away from the heart to one or more parts of the body (tissues, lungs, brain etc.). Most arteries carry oxygenated blood; the two exceptions are the pu ...
in 1565 by Ambroise Paré. *
Blood transfusion Blood transfusion is the process of transferring blood products into a person's circulation intravenously. Transfusions are used for various medical conditions to replace lost components of the blood. Early transfusions used whole blood, but mo ...
by
Jean-Baptiste Denys Jean-Baptiste Denys (1643 – 3 October 1704) was a French physician notable for having performed the first fully documented human blood transfusion, a xenotransfusion. He studied in Montpellier and was the personal physician to King Louis  ...
on June 15, 1667. and first modern transfusion by Émile Jeanbrau on October 16, 1914 (after the first non-direct transfusion performed on March 27, 1914, by the Belgian doctor Albert Hustin). * Modern dentistry by
Pierre Fauchard Pierre Fauchard (January 2, 1679 – March 21, 1761) was a French physician, credited as being the "father of modern dentistry". He is widely known for writing the first complete scientific description of dentistry, ''Le Chirurgien Dentiste'' (''" ...
(''father of modern dentistry'', early eighteenth century). * Modern
cataract surgery Cataract surgery, also called lens replacement surgery, is the removal of the natural lens of the eye (also called "crystalline lens") that has developed an opacification, which is referred to as a cataract, and its replacement with an intra ...
by Jacques Daviel in 1748 (even if early cataract surgery already existed in the antiquity). * Discovery of
osmosis Osmosis (, ) is the spontaneous net movement or diffusion of solvent molecules through a selectively-permeable membrane from a region of high water potential (region of lower solute concentration) to a region of low water potential (region o ...
in 1748 by
Jean-Antoine Nollet Jean-Antoine Nollet (; 19 November 170025 April 1770) was a French clergyman and physicist who did a number of experiments with electricity and discovered osmosis. As a deacon in the Catholic Church, he was also known as Abbé Nollet. Biography ...
. The word "osmosis" descends from the words "endosmose" and "exosmose", which were coined by French physician René Joachim Henri Dutrochet (1776–1847) from the Greek words ένδον (''endon'' : within), έξο (''exo'' : outside), and ωσμος (''osmos'' : push, impulsion). * The first lifesize obstetrical
mannequin A mannequin (also called a dummy, lay figure, or dress form) is a doll, often articulated, used by artists, tailors, dressmakers, window dressers and others, especially to display or fit clothing and show off different fabrics and textiles. P ...
, for teaching, by Angelique du Coudray in the 1750s.
Angélique du Coudray
at the Dinner Party database, Brooklyn Museum. Retrieved October 24, 2007.
Mothers and Daughters of Invention: Notes for a Revised History of Technology
By Autumn Stanley, Page 234. Published 1995, Rutgers University Press. (at Google books) * ''The King's Midwife : A History and Mystery of Madame du Coudray'', by Nina Rattner Gelbart, Berkeley : University of California Press, (1998).
At Worldcat
* Stethoscope in 1816 by
René Laennec René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laennec (; 17 February 1781 – 13 August 1826) was a French physician and musician. His skill at carving his own wooden flutes led him to invent the stethoscope in 1816, while working at the Hôpital Necker ...
at the Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
. * Medical
Quinine Quinine is a medication used to treat malaria and babesiosis. This includes the treatment of malaria due to '' Plasmodium falciparum'' that is resistant to chloroquine when artesunate is not available. While sometimes used for nocturnal le ...
in 1820 by
Joseph Bienaimé Caventou Joseph Bienaimé Caventou (30 June 1795 – 5 May 1877) was a French pharmacist. He was a professor at the École de Pharmacie (School of Pharmacy) in Paris. He collaborated with Pierre-Joseph Pelletier in a Parisian laboratory located behind an ...
. * Codeine first isolated in 1832 by
Pierre Robiquet Pierre Jean Robiquet (13 January 1780 – 29 April 1840) was a French chemist. He laid founding work in identifying amino acids, the fundamental building blocks of proteins. He did this through recognizing the first of them, asparagine, in 1806 ...
. La codéine
: Pierre ROBIQUET (1780–1840)
*
Aspirin Aspirin, also known as acetylsalicylic acid (ASA), is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) used to reduce pain, fever, and/or inflammation, and as an antithrombotic. Specific inflammatory conditions which aspirin is used to treat inc ...
in 1853 by Charles Frédéric Gerhardt. *
Hypodermic needle A hypodermic needle (from Greek ὑπο- (''hypo-'' = under), and δέρμα (''derma'' = skin)), one of a category of medical tools which enter the skin, called sharps, is a very thin, hollow tube with one sharp tip. It is commonly used w ...
in 1853 by
Charles Pravaz Charles Gabriel Pravaz (24 March 1791 – 24 June 1853), a French orthopedic surgeon, pioneered the hypodermic syringe. While the concept dated to Galen, the modern syringe is thought to have originated in 15th-century Italy, although it took ...
. *
Blind experiment In a blind or blinded experiment, information which may influence the participants of the experiment is withheld until after the experiment is complete. Good blinding can reduce or eliminate experimental biases that arise from a participants' expec ...
by
Claude Bernard Claude Bernard (; 12 July 1813 – 10 February 1878) was a French physiologist. Historian I. Bernard Cohen of Harvard University called Bernard "one of the greatest of all men of science". He originated the term '' milieu intérieur'', and the ...
(nineteenth century). * Discovery of
Plasmodium ''Plasmodium'' is a genus of unicellular eukaryotes that are obligate parasites of vertebrates and insects. The life cycles of ''Plasmodium'' species involve development in a blood-feeding insect host which then injects parasites into a ver ...
and its role in
malaria Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...
by Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran on November 6, 1880. * Incubator or Neonatal intensive care unit in 1881 by
Étienne Stéphane Tarnier Stéphane Étienne Tarnier (29 April 1828 – 23 November 1897) was a French obstetrician who was a native of Aiserey. He studied and practiced medicine in Paris, and is often considered as doyen of French obstetrics during the second half of t ...
. His student, Pierre-Constant Budin, followed in Tarnier's footsteps, creating perinatology in the late 1890s. *
Germ theory of disease The germ theory of disease is the currently accepted scientific theory for many diseases. It states that microorganisms known as pathogens or "germs" can lead to disease. These small organisms, too small to be seen without magnification, invade ...
by Louis Pasteur. *
Rabies vaccine The rabies vaccine is a vaccine used to prevent rabies. There are a number of rabies vaccines available that are both safe and effective. They can be used to prevent rabies before, and, for a period of time, after exposure to the rabies virus, ...
by Louis Pasteur and
Émile Roux Pierre Paul Émile Roux FRS (17 December 18533 November 1933) was a French physician, bacteriologist and immunologist. Roux was one of the closest collaborators of Louis Pasteur (1822–1895), a co-founder of the Pasteur Institute, and respon ...
in 1885. *
Antibiotics An antibiotic is a type of antimicrobial substance active against bacteria. It is the most important type of antibacterial agent for fighting bacterial infections, and antibiotic medications are widely used in the treatment and prevention o ...
by Louis Pasteur and
Jean Paul Vuillemin Jean Paul Vuillemin (13 February 1861 – 25 September 1932 in Malzéville) was a French mycologist born in Docelles. He studied at the University of Nancy, earning his medical doctorate in 1884. In 1892 he obtained his doctorate in sciences at ...
(by means of natural antibiosis; modern artificial antibiotics were developed later by the British Alexander Fleming). *
Mantoux test The Mantoux test or Mendel–Mantoux test (also known as the Mantoux screening test, tuberculin sensitivity test, Pirquet test, or PPD test for purified protein derivative) is a tool for screening for tuberculosis (TB) and for tuberculosis diagn ...
by Charles Mantoux in 1907. *
Tuberculosis vaccine Tuberculosis (TB) vaccines are vaccinations intended for the prevention of tuberculosis. Immunotherapy as a defence against TB was first proposed in 1890 by Robert Koch.Prabowo, S. et al. "Targeting multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) by ...
by
Albert Calmette Léon Charles Albert Calmette ForMemRS (12 July 1863 – 29 October 1933) was a French physician, bacteriologist and immunologist, and an important officer of the Pasteur Institute. He discovered the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin, an attenuated for ...
and
Camille Guérin Jean-Marie Camille Guérin (; 22 December 1872 – 9 June 1961) was a French veterinarian, bacteriologist and immunologist who, together with Albert Calmette, developed the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG), a vaccine for immunization against tube ...
in 1921 (BCG). *
Antipsychotic Antipsychotics, also known as neuroleptics, are a class of psychotropic medication primarily used to manage psychosis (including delusions, hallucinations, paranoia or disordered thought), principally in schizophrenia but also in a range of ...
s in 1952 by
Henri Laborit Henri Laborit (21 November 1914 – 18 May 1995) was a French surgeon, neurobiologist, writer and philosopher. In 1952, Laborit was instrumental in the development of the drug chlorpromazine, published his findings, and convinced three psychiatri ...
(
chlorpromazine Chlorpromazine (CPZ), marketed under the brand names Thorazine and Largactil among others, is an antipsychotic medication. It is primarily used to treat psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia. Other uses include the treatment of bipolar di ...
). * Healy, D. 2005. Psychiatric Drugs Explained. 4th Ed. Britain:Elsevier Limited. P. 8, 17. * * * Discovery of the cause of
Down syndrome Down syndrome or Down's syndrome, also known as trisomy 21, is a genetic disorder caused by the presence of all or part of a third copy of chromosome 21. It is usually associated with physical growth delays, mild to moderate intellectual dis ...
(chromosome 21
trisomy A trisomy is a type of polysomy in which there are three instances of a particular chromosome, instead of the normal two. A trisomy is a type of aneuploidy (an abnormal number of chromosomes). Description and causes Most organisms that reprodu ...
) by
Jérôme Lejeune Jérôme Jean Louis Marie Lejeune (13 June 1926 – 3 April 1994) was a French pediatrician and geneticist, best known for discovering the link of diseases to chromosome abnormalities, most especially the link between Down Syndrome and trisomy- ...
in 1958-1959 (syndrome first described by
Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol (3 February 1772 – 12 December 1840) was a French psychiatrist. Early life and education Born and raised in Toulouse, Esquirol completed his education at Montpellier. He came to Paris in 1799 where he worked ...
,
Édouard Séguin Édouard Séguin (January 20, 1812 – October 28, 1880) was a French physician and educationist born in Clamecy, Nièvre. He is remembered for his work with children having cognitive impairments in France and the United States. Background and c ...
and
John Langdon Down John Langdon Haydon Down (18 November 1828 – 7 October 1896) was a British physician best known for his description of the genetic condition now known as Down syndrome, which he originally classified in 1862. He is also noted for his work in ...
) * First
bone marrow transplant Hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (HSCT) is the transplantation of multipotent hematopoietic stem cells, usually derived from bone marrow, peripheral blood, or umbilical cord blood in order to replicate inside of a patient and to produce ...
by
Georges Mathé Georges Mathé (9 July 1922 – 15 October 2010) was a French people, French oncology, oncologist and immunology, immunologist. In November 1958, he performed the first successful allogeneic bone marrow transplant ever performed on unrelated huma ...
, a French oncologist, in 1959 on five Yugoslavian nuclear workers whose own marrow had been damaged by irradiation caused by a
Criticality accident A criticality accident is an accidental uncontrolled nuclear fission chain reaction. It is sometimes referred to as a critical excursion, critical power excursion, or divergent chain reaction. Any such event involves the unintended accumulation ...
at the
Vinča Nuclear Institute The Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences is a nuclear physics research institution near Belgrade, Serbia. Since its founding, the institute has also conducted research in the fields in physics, chemistry and biology. The scholarly institute is ...
. *
Insulin pump An insulin pump is a medical device used for the administration of insulin in the treatment of diabetes mellitus, also known as continuous subcutaneous insulin therapy. The device configuration may vary depending on design. A traditional pump ...
in 1981 by Jacques Mirouze (first implantation) in Montpellier.Les lauréats des 7èmes Victoires de la Médecine
sur le site Les victoires de la Médecine 2008.
* Discovery of
human immunodeficiency virus The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immun ...
by
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (; born 30 July 1947) is a French virologist and Director of the Regulation of Retroviral Infections Division (french: Unité de Régulation des Infections Rétrovirales) and Professor at the in Paris, France. Born in Paris, France, Barré-Sino ...
and
Luc Montagnier Luc Montagnier (; , ; 18 August 1932 – 8 February 2022) was a French virologist and joint recipient, with and , of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). He worked as a res ...
(1983). *
Deep brain stimulation Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a neurosurgical procedure involving the placement of a medical device called a neurostimulator, which sends electrical impulses, through implanted electrodes, to specific targets in the brain (the brain nucleus ...
(DBS) by
Alim-Louis Benabid Alim Louis Benabid is a French-Algerian emeritus professor, neurosurgeon and member of the French Academy of Sciences, who has had a global impact in the development of deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson's disease and other movement disorde ...
in 1987. *
Mifepristone Mifepristone, also known as RU-486, is a medication typically used in combination with misoprostol to bring about a medical abortion during pregnancy and manage early miscarriage. This combination is 97% effective during the first 63 days of ...
, the
abortion pill A medical abortion, also known as medication abortion, occurs when drugs (medication) are used to bring about an abortion. Medical abortions are an alternative to surgical abortions such as vacuum aspiration or dilation and curettage. Medical ...
, by
Étienne-Émile Baulieu Étienne-Émile Baulieu (born 12 December 1926) is a French biochemist and endocrinologist who is best known for his research in the field of steroid hormones and their role in reproduction and aging. Biography Baulieu was born Émile Blum t ...
in 1988.''Etienne-Emile Baulieu: monsieur «longue vie»''
dans ''
Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...
'' du 17 août 2007.
*
Hand transplantation Hand transplantation is a surgical procedure to transplant a hand from one human to another. The donor hand usually comes from a brain-dead donor and is transplanted to a recipient who has lost one or both hands/arms. Most hand transplants to da ...
on September 23, 1998, in
Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan language, Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, third-largest city and Urban area (France), second-largest metropolitan area of F ...
by a team assembled from different countries around the world including
Jean-Michel Dubernard Jean-Michel Dubernard (; 17 May 1941 – 10 July 2021) was a French medical doctor specializing in Organ transplant, transplant surgery who served as a Deputies of the 12th French National Assembly#D, Deputy in the French National Assembly. He ...
who, shortly thereafter, performed the first successful double hand transplant. * Telesurgery by Jacques Marescaux and his team on 7 September 2001 across the Atlantic Ocean (New-York-Strasbourg, Lindbergh Operation). *
Face transplant A face transplant is a medical procedure to replace all or part of a person's face using tissue from a donor. Part of a field called "Vascularized Composite Tissue Allotransplantation" (VCA) it involves the transplantation of facial skin, the ...
on November 27, 2005 by Dr
Bernard Devauchelle Bernard Devauchelle is a French oral and maxillofacial surgeon, best known for successfully completing the first face transplant in November 2005 at Amiens Amiens (English: or ; ; pcd, Anmien, or ) is a city and commune in northern Franc ...
. * CRISPR/
Cas9 Cas9 (CRISPR associated protein 9, formerly called Cas5, Csn1, or Csx12) is a 160 kilodalton protein which plays a vital role in the immunological defense of certain bacteria against DNA viruses and plasmids, and is heavily utilized in genetic ...
gene editing by
Emmanuelle Charpentier Emmanuelle Marie Charpentier (; born 11 December 1968) is a French professor and researcher in microbiology, genetics, and biochemistry. As of 2015, she has been a director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin. In 2018, she ...
in 2012.


Transportation

*
Taxi A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choic ...
by Nicolas Sauvage in Paris in 1640. * Steamboat by
Denis Papin Denis Papin FRS (; 22 August 1647 – 26 August 1713) was a French physicist, mathematician and inventor, best known for his pioneering invention of the steam digester, the forerunner of the pressure cooker and of the steam engine. Early ...
. A boat with the world's first
internal combustion engine An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal c ...
was developed in 1807 by fellow Frenchman
Nicéphore Niépce Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (; 7 March 1765 – 5 July 1833), commonly known or referred to simply as Nicéphore Niépce, was a French inventor, usually credited with the invention of photography. Niépce developed heliography, a technique he us ...
*
Automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarde ...
by
Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot (26 February 1725 – 2 October 1804) was a French inventor who built the world's first full-size and working self-propelled mechanical land-vehicle, the "Fardier à vapeur" – effectively the world's first automobile. B ...
in 1769. * First working
Motorcycle A motorcycle (motorbike, bike, or trike (if three-wheeled)) is a two or three-wheeled motor vehicle steered by a handlebar. Motorcycle design varies greatly to suit a range of different purposes: long-distance travel, commuting, cruising ...
, the
Michaux-Perreaux steam velocipede The Michaux-Perreaux steam velocipede was a steam powered velocipede made in France sometime from 1867 to 1871, when a small Louis-Guillaume Perreaux commercial steam engine was attached to a Pierre Michaux manufactured iron framed pedal bicycle ...
by
Louis-Guillaume Perreaux Louis-Guillaume Perreaux (19 February 1816 – 5 April 1889) was a French inventor and engineer who submitted one of the first patents for a working motorcycle in 1869. Early life Perreaux was born in the village of Almenêches, in Normandy, Fran ...
patented in 1869. *
Hot Air Balloon A hot air balloon is a lighter-than-air aircraft consisting of a bag, called an envelope, which contains heated air. Suspended beneath is a gondola or wicker basket (in some long-distance or high-altitude balloons, a capsule), which carries ...
(later, Aerostat and
Airship An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air. In early ...
) by
Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier () was a French chemistry and physics teacher, and one of the first pioneers of aviation. He made the first manned free balloon flight with François Laurent d'Arlandes on 21 November 1783, in a Montgolfier bal ...
,
François Laurent d'Arlandes François Laurent d'Arlandes (; 1742 – 1 May 1809) was a French marquis, soldier and a pioneer of hot air ballooning. He and Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier made the first manned free balloon flight on 21 November 1783, in a Montgolfier ...
, the
Montgolfier brothers The Montgolfier brothers – Joseph-Michel Montgolfier (; 26 August 1740 – 26 June 1810) and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier (; 6 January 1745 – 2 August 1799) – were aviation pioneers, balloonists and paper manufacturers from the commune A ...
and
Jacques Charles Jacques Alexandre César Charles (November 12, 1746 – April 7, 1823) was a French inventor, scientist, mathematician, and balloonist. Charles wrote almost nothing about mathematics, and most of what has been credited to him was due to mistaking ...
(who also invented the first hydrogen-filled balloon). * Parachute in the late 18th century by
Louis-Sébastien Lenormand Louis-Sébastien Lenormand (May 25, 1757 – April 4, 1837) was a French chemist, physicist, inventor, monk, and a pioneer in parachuting. He is considered as the first man to make a witnessed descent with a parachute and is also credited with ...
.Lynn White, Jr.: "The Invention of the Parachute", ''Technology and Culture'' 9(3), 462-467 (1968)
JSTOR
/ref> * Compressed air vehicle and
Pneumatic motor A pneumatic motor (air motor), or compressed air engine, is a type of motor which does mechanical work by expanding compressed air. Pneumatic motors generally convert the compressed air energy to mechanical work through either linear or rotary ...
by Andraud and Tessie of Motay in Chaillot on July 9, 1840,The History of compressed air vehicles. (n.d.). Retrieved from improved by Louis Mékarski in 1843 in Nantes (see
Mekarski system The Mekarski system was a compressed-air propulsion system for trams invented by Louis Mékarski or Louis Mékarsky (the correct spelling is uncertain) in the 1870s. He worked in France, was born in 1843 in Clermont-Ferrand (center of France) ...
and
Compressed air car A compressed-air car is a compressed-air vehicle fueled by pressure vessels filled with compressed air. It is propelled by the release and expansion of the air within a motor adapted to compressed air. The car might be powered solely by air, or ...
). * In air travel : ** First glider to fly higher than its point of departure, by
Jean-Marie Le Bris Jean Marie Le Bris (March 25, 1817, Concarneau – February 17, 1872, Douarnenez) was a French aviator, born in Concarneau, Brittany who built two glider aircraft and performed at least one flight on board of his first machine in late 1856. His ...
in 1856. ** First manned, powered, heavier-than-air flight of a significant distance on October 9, 1890, by
Clément Ader Clément Ader (2 April 1841 – 3 May 1925) was a French inventor and engineer who was born near Toulouse in Muret, Haute-Garonne, and died in Toulouse. He is remembered primarily for his pioneering work in aviation. In 1870 he was also one ...
. ** First aileron, built by
Robert Esnault-Pelterie Robert Albert Charles Esnault-Pelterie (8 November 1881 – 6 December 1957) was a French aircraft designer and spaceflight theorist. He is referred to as being one of the founders of modern rocketry and astronautics, along with the Russian Kons ...
in 1904. Modern design of ailerons by
Henri Farman Henri Farman (26 May 1874– 17 July 1958) was a British-French aviator and aircraft designer and manufacturer with his brother Maurice Farman. Before dedicating himself to aviation he gained fame as a sportsman, specifically in cycling and moto ...
.Origins of Control Surfaces
Aerospaceweb
** First aircraft design with the modern monoplane tractor configuration of aircraft by
Louis Bleriot Louis may refer to: * Louis (coin) * Louis (given name), origin and several individuals with this name * Louis (surname) * Louis (singer), Serbian singer * HMS ''Louis'', two ships of the Royal Navy See also Derived or associated terms * Lewis ...
in 1908.transportationhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/louis_bleriot Transportation History at Suite101.com. Retrieved 12 March 2008. *
Injector An injector is a system of ducting and nozzles used to direct the flow of a high-pressure fluid in such a way that a lower pressure fluid is entrained in the jet and carried through a duct to a region of higher pressure. It is a fluid-dynamic ...
by
Henri Giffard Baptiste Jules Henri Jacques Giffard (8 February 182514 April 1882) was a French engineer. In 1852 he invented the steam injector and the powered Giffard dirigible airship. Career Giffard was born in Paris in 1825. He invented the injector a ...
in 1858 *
Internal combustion engine An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal c ...
between 1859 and 1861 by
Alphonse Beau de Rochas Alphonse Eugène Beau de Rochas (9 April 1815, Digne-les-Bains, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence – 27 March 1893, Vincennes) was a French engineer. He was the first to patent the four-stroke engine in 1862, but he did not build one and the idea was su ...
and Belgian-born
Étienne Lenoir Jean Joseph Étienne Lenoir, also known as Jean J. Lenoir (12 January 1822 – 4 August 1900), was a Belgian-French engineer who developed the internal combustion engine in 1858. Prior designs for such engines were patented as early as 1807 ( ...
in Paris. * Submarine : The first submarine not relying on human power was the French ''
Plongeur Plongeur, the French word for '' diver'' may refer to the following *The French submarine ''Plongeur'' *An employee charged with washing dishes Dishwashing, washing the dishes, doing the dishes, or washing up in Great Britain, is the proces ...
'' (meaning ''diver''), launched in 1863, and using compressed air at 180 
psi Psi, PSI or Ψ may refer to: Alphabetic letters * Psi (Greek) (Ψ, ψ), the 23rd letter of the Greek alphabet * Psi (Cyrillic) (Ѱ, ѱ), letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet, adopted from Greek Arts and entertainment * "Psi" as an abbreviatio ...
(1241
kPa KPA may refer to: * Keele Postgraduate Association, Keele University, UK, formerly Keele Research Association (KRA) * Kensington (Olympia) station, London, England, National Rail station code * Kenya Ports Authority * ''Kiln phosphoric acid'', a ...
). * Bicycle in 1864 by
Pierre Michaux Pierre Michaux (June 25, 1813 – 1883) was a blacksmith who furnished parts for the carriage trade in Paris during the 1850s and 1860s. He may have become the inventor of the bicycle when he added pedals to a draisine to form the Michaud ...
and
Pierre Lallement Pierre Lallement (; October 25, 1843 – August 29, 1891) is considered by some''New York Times'' accessed July 18, 2010 to be the inventor of the pedal bicycle. Early years Lallement was born on October 25, 1843 in Pont-à-Mousson near Nancy, Fr ...
(endless power-transmitting chain invented by Jacques de Vaucanson in 1770 and applied to bicycles by J. F. Tretz).''New York Times''
Melinda Tuhis, "Bragging Rights to the Bicycle, All Thanks to a Frenchman," August 2, 1998
accessed July 18, 2010
* Gunpowder powered
ornithopter An ornithopter (from Greek ''ornis, ornith-'' "bird" and ''pteron'' "wing") is an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings. Designers sought to imitate the flapping-wing flight of birds, bats, and insects. Though machines may differ in form, ...
by
Gustave Trouvé Gustave Pierre Trouvé (2 January 1839 – 27 July 1902) was a French electrical engineer and inventor in the 19th century. Trouvé was born on 2 January 1839 in La Haye-Descartes (Indre-et-Loire, France) and died on 27 July 1902 in Paris. A pol ...
in 1870 * First manned
balloon mail Balloon mail is the transport of mail (usually for weight reasons in the form of a postcard) carrying the name of the sender by means of an unguided hydrogen or helium filled balloon. Since the balloon is not controllable, the delivery of a ballo ...
during the Siege of Paris (1871) * First outboard
motorboat A motorboat, speedboat or powerboat is a boat that is exclusively powered by an engine. Some motorboats are fitted with inboard engines, others have an outboard motor installed on the rear, containing the internal combustion engine, the gea ...
by
Gustave Trouvé Gustave Pierre Trouvé (2 January 1839 – 27 July 1902) was a French electrical engineer and inventor in the 19th century. Trouvé was born on 2 January 1839 in La Haye-Descartes (Indre-et-Loire, France) and died on 27 July 1902 in Paris. A pol ...
around 1870, patented in May 1880 *
Inflatable An inflatable is an object that can be inflated with a gas, usually with air, but hydrogen, helium and nitrogen are also used. One of several advantages of an inflatable is that it can be stored in a small space when not inflated, since inflata ...
tyres for cars by Édouard Michelin in 1895 * Scooter (1902) and
Moped A moped ( ) is a type of small motorcycle, generally having a less stringent licensing requirement than full motorcycles or automobiles. The term used to mean a similar vehicle except with both bicycle pedals and a motorcycle engine. Mopeds typ ...
. *
V8 engine A V8 engine is an eight-cylinder piston engine in which two banks of four cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration. The first V8 engine was produced by the French Antoinette company in 1904, developed and u ...
by Léon Levavasseur in 1902 * Modern
automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarde ...
Drum brake in 1902 by Louis Renault. *
Helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...
: in 1907, the two first flying helicopters were experimented independently by Louis BreguetMunson, Kenneth. ''Helicopters and other Rotorcraft since 1907''. London: Blandford Publishing, 1968. and
Paul Cornu Paul Cornu (; June 15, 1881 – 6 June 1944) was a French engineer. Life Paul Cornu, of Romanian origins, was born in Glos la Ferrière, France and was one of thirteen children. At a young age, he helped his father in his transports company. H ...
.Leishman, Dr. J. Gordon, Technical Fellow of AHS International
"Paper."
''64th Annual Forum of the American Helicopter Society International, on the aerodynamic capability of Cornu's design
*
Seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their technological characteri ...
by
Gabriel Voisin Gabriel Voisin (5 February 1880 – 25 December 1973) was a French aviation pioneer and the creator of Europe's first manned, engine-powered, heavier-than-air aircraft capable of a sustained (1 km), circular, controlled flight, which was made ...
in June 1905 (non-autonomous) and by Henri Fabre in 1910 (autonomous : ''
Fabre Hydravion Fabre Hydravion is the name used in English-language sources for an originally unnamed experimental floatplane designed by Henri Fabre. The aircraft is notable as the first to take off from water under its own power. Development Hydravion (F ...
'').The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft (Part Work 1982-1985), 1985, Orbis Publishing *
Ramjet A ramjet, or athodyd (aero thermodynamic duct), is a form of airbreathing jet engine that uses the forward motion of the engine to produce thrust. Since it produces no thrust when stationary (no ram air) ramjet-powered vehicles require an as ...
by
René Lorin René Lorin (24 March 1877 – 16 January 1933) was a French aerospace engineer and inventor of the ramjet. In 1908 Lorin patented the first subsonic ramjet design. He published the principles of a ramjet in articles in the journal '' L'Aérophil ...
in 1913. * The first helicopter to be powered by a gasturbine (
Alouette II Alouette or alouettes may refer to: Music and literature * "Alouette" (song), a French-language children's song * Alouette, a character in ''The King of Braves GaoGaiGar'' Aerospace * SNCASE Alouette, a utility helicopter developed in France i ...
), in 1955 *
Catalytic converter A catalytic converter is an vehicle emissions control, exhaust emission control device that converts toxic gases and pollutants in exhaust gas from an internal combustion engine into less-toxic pollutants by catalysis, catalyzing a redox chemic ...
by
Eugene Houdry Eugène Jules Houdry (Domont, France, April 18, 1892 – Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, July 18, 1962) was a mechanical engineer who graduated from École Nationale Supérieure d'Arts et Métiers in 1911. Houdry served as a lieutenant in a tank com ...
in 1956. *
Concorde The Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde () is a retired Franco-British supersonic airliner jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation (later Aérospatiale) and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Studies started in 1954, and France an ...
by Aérospatiale and the British Aircraft Corporation (1969) * HDI diesel engine in 1998 by
PSA Peugeot Citroën The PSA Group (), legally known as Peugeot S.A. (Peugeot Société Anonyme, trading as Groupe PSA; formerly known as PSA Peugeot Citroën from 1991 to 2016) was a French multinational automotive manufacturing company which produced automobiles ...
.


Clothing

* Bliaut in the 12th century.Boucher, François. ''
20,000 Years of Fashion ''20,000 Years of Fashion: The History of Costume and Personal Adornment'' is a dictionary of western fashion from ancient times up to the 1960s, edited by Francois Boucher and his longtime assistant Yvonne Deslandres. The book is widely cited a ...
: The History of Costume and Personal Adornment'', Harry Abrams, 1966, pp. 164–172
*
French hood The French hood is a type of woman's headgear that was popular in Western Europe in the 16th century. The French hood is characterized by a rounded shape, contrasted with the angular "English" or gable hood. It is worn over a coif, and has a bl ...
in the early 16th century. * Attifet in the 16th century. * Jacquard loom, a mechanical loom, invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1801, that simplifies the process of manufacturing textiles with complex patterns such as brocade,
damask Damask (; ar, دمشق) is a reversible patterned fabric of silk, wool, linen, cotton, or synthetic fibers, with a pattern formed by weaving. Damasks are woven with one warp yarn and one weft yarn, usually with the pattern in warp-faced satin ...
, and matelasse. *
Denim Denim is a sturdy cotton warp-faced textile in which the weft passes under two or more warp threads. This twill weaving produces a diagonal ribbing that distinguishes it from cotton duck. While a denim predecessor known as dungaree has been p ...
Textile Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...
(French town of Nîmes, from which 'denim' ''de Nîmes'' gets its name) * Improved, chain stitch, Sewing machine by
Barthélemy Thimonnier Barthélemy Thimonnier (19 August 1793 in L'Arbresle, Rhône - 5 July 1857 in Amplepuis) was a French inventor, who is attributed with the invention of the first sewing machine that replicated sewing by hand. He was born in L'Arbresle, in Rhô ...
in 1830. * Modern
bra A bra, short for brassiere or brassière (, or ; ), is a form-fitting undergarment that is primarily used to support and cover breasts. It can serve a range of other practical and aesthetic purposes, including enhancing or reducing the appea ...
by
Herminie Cadolle Herminie Cadolle (1845–1926) was a French inventor of the modern bra and founder of the Cadolle Lingerie House. Cadolle was born, raised, and lived much of her early life in France. She was a close friend of the insurrectionist Louise Michel, ...
in 1889. *
Little black dress The little black dress (LBD) is a black evening or cocktail dress, cut simply and often quite short. Fashion historians ascribe the origins of the little black dress to the 1920s designs of Coco Chanel. It is intended to be long-lasting, versat ...
by
Coco Chanel Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel ( , ; 19 August 1883 – 10 January 1971) was a French fashion designer and businesswoman. The founder and namesake of the Chanel brand, she was credited in the post-World War I era with popularizing a sporty, c ...
in the 1920s, *
Polo shirt A polo shirt, tennis shirt, golf shirt, or chukker shirt is a form of shirt with a collar. Polo shirts are usually short sleeved but can be long; they were used by Polo#Players, polo players originally in India in 1859 and in Great Britain durin ...
by
René Lacoste Jean René Lacoste was a French tennis player and businessman. He was nicknamed "the Crocodile" because of how he dealt with his opponents; he is also known worldwide as the creator of the Lacoste tennis shirt, which he introduced in 1929, and e ...
in 1926.''Fashion Encyclopedia'', "Lacoste Sportswear" (2007).
/ref>The Story of Lacoste. Retrieved from .Style & Design: Lacoste. ''Time'' Magazine, Winter 2004. Retrieved fro

''The Brand Channel'', Lacoste profile
.
* Modern
Bikini A bikini is a two-piece swimsuit primarily worn by women that features two triangles of fabric on top that cover the breasts, and two triangles of fabric on the bottom: the front covering the pelvis but exposing the navel, and the back coverin ...
by Louis Réard in 1946. * classic modern
pencil skirt A pencil skirt is a slim-fitting skirt with a straight, narrow cut. Generally the hem falls to, or is just below, the knee and is tailored for a close fit. It is named for its shape: long and slim like a pencil. Style The pencil skirt may be w ...
by Christian Dior in the late 1940s. * A-line by Yves Saint Laurent in 1958 (term first used in 1955 by Christian Dior). * Modern
Raincoat A raincoat is a waterproof or water-resistant garment worn on the upper body to shield the wearer from rain. The term rain jacket is sometimes used to refer to raincoats with long sleeves that are waist-length. A rain jacket may be combined with ...
(not to confuse with the older British trench-coat) by
Guy Cotten Guy Cotten is a French outdoor clothing manufacturer founded in 1964.Fiche Guy Cott ...
in 1960.Élodie Baërd,
Guy Cotten, à l'épreuve du temps
», ''Figaro madame'', 4 août 2008


Food and cooking

*
Steam digester The steam digester or bone digester (also known as Papin’s digester) is a high-pressure cooker invented by French physicist Denis Papin in 1679. It is a device for extracting fats from bones in a high-pressure steam environment, which also rend ...
by
Denis Papin Denis Papin FRS (; 22 August 1647 – 26 August 1713) was a French physicist, mathematician and inventor, best known for his pioneering invention of the steam digester, the forerunner of the pressure cooker and of the steam engine. Early ...
in 1679. *
Cafetiere A French press, also known as a cafetière, ''cafetière à piston'', ''caffettiera a stantuffo'', press pot, coffee press, or coffee plunger, is a coffee brewing device, although it can also be used for other tasks. In 1923 Ugo Paolini, an Ital ...
:
Percolation Percolation (from Latin ''percolare'', "to filter" or "trickle through"), in physics, chemistry and materials science, refers to the movement and filtering of fluids through porous materials. It is described by Darcy's law. Broader applicatio ...
(method used by
Coffee percolator A coffee percolator is a type of pot used for the brewing of coffee by continually cycling the boiling or nearly boiling brew through the grounds using gravity until the required strength is reached. Coffee percolators once enjoyed great popul ...
) by
Jean-Baptiste de Belloy Jean-Baptiste Count de Belloy (9 October 1709, Morangles, Diocese of Beauvais – 10 June 1808, Paris) was an Archbishop of Paris and cardinal of the Catholic Church. Biography Belloy was born in the small village of Morangles, near Senlis, ...
in 1800 and the
French press A French press, also known as a cafetière, ''cafetière à piston'', ''caffettiera a stantuffo'', press pot, coffee press, or coffee plunger, is a coffee brewing device, although it can also be used for other tasks. In 1923 Ugo Paolini, an Ital ...
(another method to make coffee). * Canning (see above in the chemistry section) *
Absorption refrigerator An absorption refrigerator is a refrigerator that uses a heat source (e.g., solar energy, a fossil-fueled flame, waste heat from factories, or district heating systems) to provide the energy needed to drive the cooling process. The system uses tw ...
by
Ferdinand Carré Ferdinand Philippe Edouard Carré (11 March 1824 – 11 January 1900) was a French engineer, born at Moislains (Somme) on 11 March 1824. Carré is best known as the inventor of refrigeration equipment used to produce ice. He died on 11 January 19 ...
in 1858. * Margarine by
Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès (; 24 October 1817 – 31 May 1880) was a French chemist and inventor who is famous for his invention of margarine. Early life Hippolyte Mège was born on 24 October 1817 in Draguignan to Jean Joseph-Emmanuel Mège and ...
in 1869 after the discovery of margaric acid by Michel Eugène Chevreul in 1813. *
Clementine A clementine (''Citrus × clementina'') is a tangor, a citrus fruit hybrid between a willowleaf mandarin orange ( ''C.'' × ''deliciosa'') and a sweet orange (''C. × sinensis''), named in honor of Clément Rodier, a French missionary who fir ...
in 1902 by
Clément Rodier Marie-Clément Rodier, C.S.Sp. (; born Vital Rodier; 1839–1904) was a French missionary brother in Algeria. He is credited with creating the clementine variety of mandarin orange in 1902. Rodier was born 25 May 1839 as Vital Rodier in Malvieille ...
. *
Food processor A food processor is a kitchen appliance used to facilitate repetitive tasks in the preparation of food. Today, the term almost always refers to an electric-motor-driven appliance, although there are some manual devices also referred to as "food ...
by Pierre Verdun between 1963 and 1971. *
Crêpe A crêpe or crepe ( or , , Quebec French: ) is a very thin type of pancake. Crêpes are usually one of two varieties: ''sweet crêpes'' () or ''savoury galettes'' (). They are often served with a wide variety of fillings such as cheese, ...
(
List of French dishes There are many dishes considered part of French cuisine. Some dishes are considered universally accepted as part of the national cuisine, while others fit into a unique regional cuisine. There are also breads, charcuterie items as well as desser ...
) *
Coq au vin ''Coq au vin'' (; , "rooster/cock with wine") is a French dish of chicken braised with wine, lardons, mushrooms, and optionally garlic. A red Burgundy wine is typically used, though many regions of France make variants using local wines, such ...
*
Champagne Champagne (, ) is a sparkling wine originated and produced in the Champagne wine region of France under the rules of the appellation, that demand specific vineyard practices, sourcing of grapes exclusively from designated places within it, ...
J. Robinson (ed) ''"The Oxford Companion to Wine"'' Third Edition pg 150–153
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
2006
and other
French wine French wine is produced all throughout France, in quantities between 50 and 60 million hectolitres per year, or 7–8 billion bottles. France is one of the largest wine producers in the world, along with Italian, Spanish, and Amer ...
s. * 350 to 400 distinct types of French cheese :
List of French cheeses This is a list of French cheeses documenting the varieties of cheeses, a milk-based food that is produced in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms, which are found in France. In 1962, French President Charles de Gaulle asked, "How can you gove ...
*
Baguette A baguette (; ) is a long, thin type of bread of French origin that is commonly made from basic lean dough (the dough, though not the shape, is defined by French law). It is distinguishable by its length and crisp crust. A baguette has a dia ...
Steele, Ross. The French Way. 2nd edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006. *
Cassoulet Cassoulet (, also , ; ; from Occitan and cognates with Spanish: ''cazoleta'' and Catalan: ''cassolet'') is a rich, slow-cooked stew containing meat (typically pork sausages, goose, duck and sometimes mutton), pork skin () and white beans () ...
*
Foie gras Foie gras (, ; ) is a specialty food product made of the liver of a duck or goose. According to French law, foie gras is defined as the liver of a duck or goose fattened by gavage (force feeding). Foie gras is a popular and well-known delica ...
*
Escargot Snails are considered edible in many areas such as the Mediterranean region, Africa, or Southeast Asia, while in other cultures, snails are seen as a taboo food. In American English, edible land snails are also called escargot, taken from the Fre ...
*
Frog legs Frog legs (French: ''Cuisses de grenouille'') are one of the better-known delicacies of French cuisine, where it has been considered as a national delicacy. The legs of edible frogs are also consumed in other parts of the world, including Vi ...
*
Ratatouille Ratatouille ( , ), oc, ratatolha , is a French Provençal dish of stewed vegetables which originated in Nice, and is sometimes referred to as ''ratatouille niçoise'' (). Recipes and cooking times differ widely, but common ingredients include ...
*
Camembert Camembert (, also , ) is a moist, soft, creamy, surface-ripened cow's milk cheese. It was first made in the late 18th century in Camembert, Normandy, in northwest France. It is sometimes compared in look and taste to brie cheese, albeit wi ...
by Marie Harel


Weapons and military

* Bec de corbin, a popular medieval weapon. * Motte-and-bailey, a form of castle. *Kaufmann, J. E. and H. W. Kaufmann. (2004)
The Medieval Fortress: castles, forts and walled cities of the Middle Ages.
' Cambridge, US: Da Capo, p.33. . *Nicolle, David. (1984)
The Age of Charlemagne.
' Oxford: Osprey, p.109. .
* The
Pot-de-fer The ''pot-de-fer'' was a primitive cannon made of iron. It was used by the French in the Hundred Years' War. The name means "iron pot" in French. In Italy, ''pots-de-fer'' were known as ''vasi'' or ''vasii'', meaning "pot" or "vase". Descripti ...
, a primitive cannon during the Hundred Years' War. *
Culverin A culverin was initially an ancestor of the hand-held arquebus, but later was used to describe a type of medieval and Renaissance cannon. The term is derived from the French "''couleuvrine''" (from ''couleuvre'' "grass snake", following the ...
, ancestor of the musket. ww.etudes-touloises.com/articles/105/art7.pdf L'art de la guerre au XVIe siècle Pascal THIEBAUT. *
Flintlock Flintlock is a general term for any firearm that uses a flint-striking ignition mechanism, the first of which appeared in Western Europe in the early 16th century. The term may also apply to a particular form of the mechanism itself, also know ...
by
Marin le Bourgeoys Marin le Bourgeoys (c. 1550–1634) was a French artist and inventor, known for inventing a flintlock mechanism that was used in firearms for over two centuries. Life Marin le Bourgeoys was born into a noted artisan family in Lisieux, in Normandy ...
in 1612. * Corvette, a small, maneuverable, lightly armed warship that appeared in the 1670s. * Bayonet (from French ''baïonnette'')H. Blackmore, ''Hunting Weapons'', pg 50 * Modern
military uniform A military uniform is a standardised dress worn by members of the armed forces and paramilitaries of various nations. Military dress and styles have gone through significant changes over the centuries, from colourful and elaborate, ornamented ...
in the mid 17th century. *
Floating battery A floating battery is a kind of armed watercraft, often improvised or experimental, which carries heavy armament but has few other qualities as a warship. History Use of timber rafts loaded with cannon by Danish defenders of Copenhagen a ...
, first used during the Great Siege of Gibraltar in September 1782. * Mass conscription or Levée en masse during the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...
. *
Corps Corps (; plural ''corps'' ; from French , from the Latin "body") is a term used for several different kinds of organization. A military innovation by Napoleon I, the formation was first named as such in 1805. The size of a corps varies great ...
by
Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
in 1805. p.397 *
Carabine à tige The carabine à tige (sometimes called a "stem rifle") was a type of black-powder, muzzle-loading rifle invented by Louis-Etienne de Thouvenin. The method was an improvement of the invention of another Frenchman, Henri-Gustave Delvigne. Delvig ...
by Louis-Étienne de Thouvenin (improvement of an earlier invention by
Henri-Gustave Delvigne Henri-Gustave Delvigne (April 10, 1800 in Hamburg – October 18, 1876 in Toulon) was a French soldier and inventor. He became a captain in the French infantry service, from which he resigned on the outbreak of the 1830 July Revolution. Delvig ...
) before 1844.''Rifles'' by David Westwood p.23
/ref> *
Minié rifle The Minié rifle was an important infantry rifle of the mid-19th century. A version was adopted in 1849 following the invention of the Minié ball in 1847 by the French Army captain Claude-Étienne Minié of the Chasseurs d'Orléans and Henr ...
by
Claude-Étienne Minié Claude-Etienne Minié (13 February 1804 – 14 December 1879) was a French military instructor and inventor famous for solving the problem of designing a reliable muzzle-loading rifle by inventing the Minié ball in 1846, and the Minié rifle in ...
, first reliable (easy to load)
muzzle-loading rifle A muzzle-loading rifle is a muzzle-loaded small arm or artillery piece that has a rifled barrel rather than a smoothbore. The term " rifled muzzle loader" typically is used to describe a type of artillery piece, although it is technically accurate ...
in 1849. In the artillery, from 1859, the La Hitte rifled guns were a considerable improvement over the previous smooth-bore guns which had been in use,''French Army 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War (1)'' by Stephen Shann p.37
/ref> able to shoot at 3,000 meters either regulars shells, ball-loaded shells or grapeshot. They appear to have been the first case of usage of rifled cannons on a battlefield. * First naval
periscope A periscope is an instrument for observation over, around or through an object, obstacle or condition that prevents direct line-of-sight observation from an observer's current position. In its simplest form, it consists of an outer case with ...
in 1854 by Hippolyte Marié-Davy. *
Canne de combat Canne de combat is a French combat sport. As weapon, it uses a ''canne'' or cane (a kind of walking-stick) designed for fighting. ''Canne de combat'' was standardized in the 1970s for sporting competition by Maurice Sarry. The ''canne'' is very ...
and
Savate Savate (), also known as boxe française, savate boxing, French boxing or French footfighting, is a French kickboxing combat sport that uses the hands and feet as weapons combining elements of English boxing with graceful kicking techniques. ...
. *
Épée The ( or , ), sometimes spelled epee in English, is the largest and heaviest of the three weapons used in the sport of fencing. The modern derives from the 19th-century , a weapon which itself derives from the French small sword. This contains ...
, the modern derivative of the dueling sword, used for fencing. *
Chassepot The Chassepot (pronounced ''SHAS-poh''), officially known as ''Fusil modèle 1866'', was a bolt-action military breechloading rifle. It is famous for having been the arm of the French forces in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. It repla ...
by
Antoine Alphonse Chassepot Antoine Alphonse Chassepot (1833–1905) was a French inventor and gunsmith. Born in 1833 in the town of Mutzig in Alsace, he is best known for inventing the breech-loading, center-fire needle gun rifle named after him: the Chassepot. Officially k ...
in 1866. * Smokeless
gunpowder Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). Th ...
(modern
nitrocellulose Nitrocellulose (also known as cellulose nitrate, flash paper, flash cotton, guncotton, pyroxylin and flash string, depending on form) is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose through exposure to a mixture of nitric acid and ...
-based) :
Poudre B Poudre B was the first practical smokeless gunpowder created in 1884. It was perfected between 1882 and 1884 at "Laboratoire Central des Poudres et Salpêtres" in Paris, France. Originally called "Poudre V" from the name of the inventor, Paul V ...
by
Paul Marie Eugène Vieille Paul Marie Eugène Vieille (2 September 1854 – 14 January 1934) was a French chemist who invented modern nitrocellulose-based smokeless gunpowder in 1884. He was a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique. Impact The new smokeless powder, called ...
in 1884.Davis, Tenny L. ''The Chemistry of Powder & Explosives'' (1943) pages 289–292 It was first used to load the
Lebel Model 1886 rifle The Lebel Model 1886 rifle (French: ''Fusil Modèle 1886 dit "Fusil Lebel"'') also known as the ''"Fusil Mle 1886 M93"'', after a bolt modification was added in 1893, is an 8 mm bolt-action infantry rifle that entered service in the French A ...
(invented by
Nicolas Lebel Colonel Nicolas Lebel (18 August 1838 – 6 May 1891), after whom the French military's Lebel rifle was named. Biography Nicolas Lebel was born in Saint-Mihiel (Meuse) near Verdun. Interested by the prospects of a military career he enrolled in ...
), making it the first military firearm to use smokeless powder ammunition. It is also the first rifle to use full metal jacket bullets as its standard ammunition. * First Air force in 1910. * Sonar, first ultrasonic submarine detector using an electrostatic method (and first practical military sonar) in 1916-1917 by Paul Langevin (with Constantin Chilowsky). * Tanks : developed at the same time (1915-1916) in France and in Great Britain. France was the second country to use tanks on the battlefield (after Great Britain). in 1916, the first practical light tank, the Renault FT with the first full 360° rotation turret became, for armour historian Steven Zaloga "the world's first modern tank".


Communication and computers

* Optical Telegraph by Claude Chappe in 1792.Beyer, Rick, ''The Greatest Stories Never Told'', A&E Television Networks / The History Channel, p. 60French source
Tour du télégraphe Chappe
* Modern pencil by Nicolas-Jacques Conté in 1795.L.-Séb. Le Normand et J.-G.-V. de Moléon, ''Annales de l'industrie nationale et étrangère, ou Mercure technologique'', Bachelier, Paris, 1821 * Paper machine by Louis-Nicolas Robert in 1799.Larousse Encyclopaedia - les frères Robert, Mécaniciens français.
/ref> * Fresnel lens by Augustin-Jean FresnelLighthouses, Illuminants, Lenses Engineering and Augustin Fresnel, An Historical Bibliography, United States Coast Guard.
/ref> * Jean-François Champollion first deciphered the Rosetta Stone (1822) : modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs * Braille in 1825 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman: first digital form of writing. * Pencil sharpener by Bernard Lassimone in 1828. Therry des Estwaux created an improved mechanical sharpener in 1847. * Baudot code by Émile Baudot in 1870 and a multiplexed printing telegraph system that used his code and allowed multiple transmissions over a single line. * Coherer by Édouard Branly around 1890. * Belinograph (Wirephoto) by Édouard Belin in 1913. * The HSL and HSV, HSL color space was invented in 1938 by Georges Valensi * Bic Cristal in 1949.''Phaidon Design Classics- Volume 2'', 2006 Phaidon Press Ltd. Masterpieces''
- The Museum of Modern Art New York, April 8–September 27, 2004.
* Bézier curves by Paul de Casteljau in 1959. * Computer-aided manufacturing by Pierre Bézier in 1971 as an engineer at Renault. * Micral, earliest commercial, non-kit personal computer based on a microprocessor, by André Truong Trong Thi and François Gernelle in June 1972. * * Roy A. Allan ''A History of the Personal Computer'' (Alan Publishing, 2001) Chapter 4 (PDF: https://archive.org/download/A_History_of_the_Personal_Computer/eBook04.pdf) * Datagrams and CYCLADES in 1972-1973 by Louis Pouzin (which inspired Bob Kahn and Vinton Cerf when they invented the TCP/IP several years later). * Smart Card by Roland Moreno in 1974 after the automated chip card. * Minitel, a dial up, Videotex system, launched in July 1980, and nationally available from 1982. * Camera phone by Philippe Kahn in 1997. * Several Programming languages (non-exhaustive list) : ** Prolog (Logic programming) by a group around Alain Colmerauer in 1972 in Marseille. ** LSE (programming language), LSE, , a French, pedagogical, programming language designed in the 1970s at Supélec. ** Ada (programming language), Ada (multi-paradigm programming language, multi-paradigm) by Jean Ichbiah (who also created LIS (programming language), LIS and Green) in 1980. "Ada 83 designer Jean Ichbiah dies", Ada-Europe, 2007, webpage:
AdaE-Jobit
.
** Caml (OCaml by Xavier Leroy, Damien Doligez) developed at INRIA and formerly at École Normale Supérieure, ENS since 1985. ** Eiffel (programming language), Eiffel (Object-oriented programming, object-oriented) by Bertrand Meyer in 1986. ** STOS BASIC on the Atari ST in 1988 and AMOS BASIC on the Amiga in 1990 by François Lionet and Constantin Sotiropoulos (dialects of BASIC programming language, BASIC). * Several Computer keyboard, keyboards : ** AZERTY in the last decade of the 19th century. ** FITALY by Jean Ichbiah in 1996. ** Keyboard layout#BÉPO, BÉPO since 2003.


Technology

Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville earliest sound recording device.


Sports

* Jeu de paume, precursor of tennis, in the 12th century. * The first autonomous diving suit, the precursor to today's scuba gear, is developed by Paul Lemaire d'Augerville in 1824. * First documented cycling race, a 1,200 metre race held on May 31, 1868, at the Parc of Saint-Cloud,
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
. The first road bicycle racing, cycle race covering a distance between two cities was Paris–Rouen (cycle race), Paris–Rouen (see History of cycling). * FIFA World Cup by Jules Rimet, FIFA former president. * UEFA Euro Cup by Henri Delaunay. * Summer Olympic Games by Pierre de Coubertin. * International Olympic Committee by Pierre de Coubertin on 23 June 1894.Pierre de Coubertin. ''The Olympic Idea''. Discourses and Essays. Editions Internationales Olympiques, Lausanne, 1970. * On 22 July 1894 the newspaper ''Le Petit Journal (newspaper), Le Petit Journal'' organised the world's first competitive motor race from Paris–Rouen (motor race), Paris to Rouen. The first finisher was Count Jules-Albert de Dion but his steamer was ineligible, so the 'official' victory was awarded to Albert Lemaître driving his 3 hp petrol engined Peugeot. * Pétanque in 1907. * Triathlon in the 1920s near Paris (Joinville-le-Pont, Meulan and Poissy). * The Aqua-lung, first Scuba Set (in open-circuit) by Emile Gagnan and Jacques-Yves Cousteau in 1943. * Parkour in the 1980s by the future Yamakasi, especially David Belle. * Flyboard in 2012 by Franky Zapata.Zapata's outrageous, US$6,600 Flyboard - Aquaman meets Iron Man
gizmag.com. Retrieved: 14 July 2016.
Another version, the Flyboard Air, an air-propelled hoverboard,Flyboard Air: Franky Zapata develops his own jet-powered flying hoverboard that actually works
International Business Times. Retrieved: 14 July 2016.
achieved a Guinness World Record for farthest flight by hoverboard in April 2016. * Kitesurf aka flysurf in the 1990s by Manu Bertin and ski mountain derivatives * Wingsuit in the 1990s by Patrick de Gayardon * Vendée Globe since 1989 by Philippe Jeantot the first round-the-world single-handed yacht race, sailed non-stop and without assistance * Paris–Dakar Rally since 1978 by Thierry Sabine
Trophée Jules Verne
since 1985 by Yves Le Cornec the fastest circumnavigation of the world (under 80 days) by any type of sailing yacht with no restrictions on the size of the crew * 24 Heures du Mans translated 24 Hours Le Mans since 1923 the world's oldest active sports car race in endurance racing * Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile in 1904; translated as the International Automobile Federation.


Miscellaneous

* Escapement#Detent escapement, Detent escapement by Pierre Le Roy in 1748.''Encyclopedia of time'' Samuel L. Macey p.348
/ref> * Carcel burner in 1800. * developments of Battery (electricity), battery ** Dry cell battery by Gaston Planté in 1859 (first practical storage lead-acid battery) (2001): ''Understanding Batteries''. Royal Society of Chemistry. ** in 1866, Georges Leclanché patented the carbon-zinc wet cell battery called the Leclanché cell.''Practical Electricity'' by W. E. Ayrton and T. Mather, published by Cassell and Company, London, 1911, pp 188-193 * Interchangeable parts by Honoré Blanc. * Binoculars (using roof prisms) in 1870 by Achille Victor Emile Daubresse.photodigital.net
nbsp;— rec.photo.equipment.misc Discussion: Achille Victor Emile Daubresse, forgotten prism inventor
* Artificial Cement by Louis Vicat. * Guy Coriono, ''250 ans de l'École des Ponts et Chaussées en cent portraits'', Presses de l'école nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, Paris, 1997, 222 p. * Antoine Picon, ''L'art de l'Ingénieur. Constructeur, entrepreneur, inventeur'', éditions du Centre Pompidou, Paris, 1997, 598 p. * Hairdryer in 1879 by Alexandre Godefroy. *Modern Dry cleaning in 1855 by Jean Baptiste Jolly. * Reinforced concrete by Joseph Monier in 1849 and patented in 1867. * Loppers by Bertrand de Molleville. * Ball bearing by Jules Suriray, a Parisian bicycle mechanic, on 3 August 1869.Bicycle History, Chronology of the Growth of Bicycling and the Development of Bicycle Technology by David Mozer
/ref> * Coronagraph by Bernard Lyot in 1930. * Stapler


See also

*List of Dutch inventions and discoveries *List of German inventions and discoveries *List of Indian inventions and discoveries *List of Irish inventions and discoveries *List of Italian inventions *Scottish inventions and discoveries *List of Swedish inventions *List of Welsh inventors *List of Portuguese inventions and discoveries *Science in the Middle Ages *Science in the Age of Enlightenment


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:French Inventions And Discoveries France history-related lists, inventions and discoveries French inventions, Lists of inventions or discoveries History of science and technology by country