Jules Célestin Jamin (31 May 1818,

Termes, Ardennes Termes () is a former commune in the Ardennes department in northern France. On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the commune Grandpré.physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

. He was professor of

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

École Polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

from 1852 to 1881 and received the

Rumford Medal The Rumford Medal is an award bestowed by Britain's Royal Society every alternating year for "an outstandingly important recent discovery in the field of thermal or optical properties of matter made by a scientist working in Europe". First awar ...

in 1858 for his work on

light Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 tera ...

. He improved Brewster's inclined interference plates with the development of the

Jamin interferometer The Jamin interferometer is a type of interferometer, related to the Mach–Zehnder interferometer. It was developed in 1856 by the French physicist Jules Jamin. The interferometer consists of two mirrors, made of the thickest glass possible. T ...

Biography

Jules Jamin, son of Anthony Peter Jamin, was born in 1818 in Termes, France. He began his education at a small school in

Vouziers Vouziers () is a commune of the Ardennes department, northern France. Vouziers is the burial place of the pioneer First World War fighter pilot Roland Garros, after whom the Stade Roland Garros in Paris (the location of the French Open tennis ...

, a small village located in northeast France. After some time there, he was sent to the college at Reims by his father, Antoine-Pierre. In his first year at the college at Reims Jules won nine awards. In 1838 he won the science competition award with honors, and in October of the same year he was accepted on first selection to enter

École normale supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

where he obtained a degree in physical sciences, mathematics and natural sciences. In 1841, he graduated first in the competition of comprehensive physical sciences. He obtained his first position at the college of

Caen Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,Paul Desains. After two years, he joined the College Bourbon (today's

Lycée Condorcet The Lycée Condorcet () is a school founded in 1803 in Paris, France, located at 8, rue du Havre, in the city's 9th arrondissement. It is one of the four oldest high schools in Paris and also one of the most prestigious. Since its inception, var ...

) as a substitute teacher, then in 1844, he joined the College Louis-le-Grand as a teacher. While in Caen, he began research in support of his thesis on the reflection of light on the surface of metals, for which in 1847 he received a doctorate in physics with his thesis on light reflection on metallic surfaces. From 1844 to 1854, Jamin studied and confirmed the conclusions of

Macedonio Melloni Macedonio Melloni (11 April 1798 – 11 August 1854) was an Italian physicist, notable for demonstrating that radiant heat has similar physical properties to those of light. Life Born at Parma, in 1824 he was appointed professor at the local Uni ...

concerning energy absorption alongside fellow physicists L. Courtépée and Antoine-Philibert Masson. In 1852 he was appointed professor of physics at the

, a position he held until March 1881, when

Alfred Potier Alfred Potier (11 May 1840, in Paris – 8 May 1905, in Paris) was a French polymath who contributed to many theoretical and practical fields of science when this was rapidly expanding. His interests covered mainly mathematical physics, the natur ...

succeeded him. In 1856 Jules Jamin began working on, and completed his well known instrument, the

. In 1858 he was awarded the

, from the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

, for his work on light and in 1863 he became a professor at the Faculty of Paris, succeeding César Despretz as the associate chair of experimental physics. Based on his lectures at the École Polytechnique, he published a compelling paper titled "General essay on Physics". On July 17, 1871, he presented

Zénobe Gramme Zénobe Théophile Gramme (4 April 1826 – 20 January 1901) was a Belgian electrical engineer. He was born at Jehay-Bodegnée on 4 April 1826, the sixth child of Mathieu-Joseph Gramme, and died at Bois-Colombes on 20 January 1901. He invented ...

's invention of the electrical engine to the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV of France, Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific me ...

. In 1868, he joined the

and in the same year he created and headed the Physical Research Laboratory funded by the

École pratique des hautes études The École pratique des hautes études (), abbreviated EPHE, is a Grand Établissement in Paris, France. It is highly selective, and counted among France's most prestigious research and higher education institutions. It is a constituent college o ...

of which he was also the principal of the studies division. In 1886, he handed off the title of Director of the Physical Research Laboratory to

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. ...

. Through the Academy of Sciences, Jamin was a member of one of many committees whose purpose was to organize the Loan Collection of Scientific Instruments, a massive exhibition of scientific artifacts from which the Museum of Science in London was eventually founded. In 1882, with arrival of a new generation of physicists who came to do research for their doctorates, such as

, Henri Pellat and Anatole Leduc, he replaced Henri Milne Edwards as Dean of the Faculty with Edmond Bouty becoming the deputy director of the laboratory. In the same year, he presided over the Academy of Sciences and became permanent secretary in 1884 succeeding

Jean-Baptiste Dumas Jean Baptiste André Dumas (14 July 180010 April 1884) was a French chemist, best known for his works on organic analysis and synthesis, as well as the determination of atomic weights (relative atomic masses) and molecular weights by measuring v ...

. Like many French scientists of the period, Jamin was known to perform scientific demonstrations in public with the goal of drawing enthusiastic crowds and gaining support for his work. Jamin was a staunch advocate of the movement in 19th century French towards precision measurement being essential for meaningful scientific experimentation. His work encompassed the subjects of

magnetism Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that are mediated by a magnetic field, which refers to the capacity to induce attractive and repulsive phenomena in other entities. Electric currents and the magnetic moments of elementary particles ...

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...

humidity Humidity is the concentration of water vapor present in the air. Water vapor, the gaseous state of water, is generally invisible to the human eye. Humidity indicates the likelihood for precipitation, dew, or fog to be present. Humidity depe ...

, and

capillary action Capillary action (sometimes called capillarity, capillary motion, capillary rise, capillary effect, or wicking) is the process of a liquid flowing in a narrow space without the assistance of, or even in opposition to, any external forces li ...

(Jamin effect, Jamin chain). Other areas included the compressibility of liquids, the critical point of gases, specific heats, hygrometry, and the measurement of indices of refraction of gases, liquid water at different pressures, and of water vapor. In addition to the elliptical polarization of glassy substances, he discovered the negative elliptical polarization of fluorine. While he was a professor in Caen he would take his pupils on botanical and geologically focused expeditions on Sundays.Morgan, Appleton. "Sketch of Jules Jamin." ''The Popular Science Monthly'', June 1887, pp. 262–266. In 1860 Jamin observed that when a cylindrical capillary tube was filled with a series ("chain") of alternating bubbles and water droplets, the chain remained immobile despite an increase or decrease of pressure at one end of the tube. See p. 173 of: * The "Jamin effect" has been more broadly defined as a resistance to flow in capillaries due to hysteresis of the contact angle, or to changes in the radius of the capillary, or to differences in the interfacial tension at the forward and trailing edges of bubbles. * * ; see p. 1324. In his work with optics, he discovered the elliptical polarization of light reflected from glassy substances in the vicinity of the angle of polarization, as predicted by

Augustin-Louis Cauchy Baron Augustin-Louis Cauchy (, ; ; 21 August 178923 May 1857) was a French mathematician, engineer, and physicist who made pioneering contributions to several branches of mathematics, including mathematical analysis and continuum mechanics. He ...

. Jules Jamin observed the

Solar eclipse of July 8, 1842 A total solar eclipse occurred on July 8, 1842. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's a ...

with mentoring from

François Arago Dominique François Jean Arago ( ca, Domènec Francesc Joan Aragó), known simply as François Arago (; Catalan: ''Francesc Aragó'', ; 26 February 17862 October 1853), was a French mathematician, physicist, astronomer, freemason, supporter of t ...

. This was also observed with Paul Laugier, Félix Mauvais,

Jean Goujon Jean Goujon (c. 1510 – c. 1565)Thirion, Jacques (1996). "Goujon, Jean" in ''The Dictionary of Art'', edited by Jane Turner; vol. 13, pp. 225–227. London: Macmillan. Reprinted 1998 with minor corrections: . was a French Renaissance sculpt ...

Hervé Faye Hervé Auguste Étienne Albans Faye ( – ) was a French astronomer, born at Saint-Benoît-du-Sault (Indre) and educated at the École Polytechnique, which he left in 1834, before completing his course, to accept a position in the Paris Obse ...

, and Charles Mathieu. In 1873, Jamin invented a magnet with a layered design that allowed it to carry twenty-two times its own weight. At the time the greatest lifting capacity demonstrated for an artificial magnet was only four to five times its own weight. He also improved on the Yablachkov Candle with his Jamin Electric Light, which he claimed "lights and relights itself as often as is required; only requires one circuit for all the neighboring candles; it replaces automatically those which are consumed, by new carbons; it employs no insulating material which might alter the color of the flame; and it requires no preliminary preparation of the carbons, which considerably diminishes the expense." He married at Reims in 1851, Theresa Josephine Eudoxia Lebrun (1832-1880), with whom he had a daughter, Lucie who was the wife of the physicist

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 P ...

, and a son, a painter, Paul Jamin. Jamin was friends with Irish physicist

John Tyndall John Tyndall FRS (; 2 August 1820 – 4 December 1893) was a prominent 19th-century Irish physicist. His scientific fame arose in the 1850s from his study of diamagnetism. Later he made discoveries in the realms of infrared radiation and the p ...

, and after the Franco-Prussian War began he even accepted Tyndall's offer to take care of his wife and children in Brittany while Jamin remained in Paris.

Works

Jules Jamin had a couple of articles that were published in

Revue des Deux Mondes The ''Revue des deux Mondes'' (, ''Review of the Two Worlds'') is a monthly French-language literary, cultural and current affairs magazine that has been published in Paris since 1829. According to its website, "it is today the place for debates a ...

, a French magazine that was published in Paris. One article that Jamin had published was titled ''"La Physique Depuis Les Recherches D'Herschel: I. Melloni et ses Travaux sur la Chaleur Rayonnantewhich"'', which translates to "Physics Since Herschel's Research: Melloni and His Work on Radiant Heat." This article was published on December 15 of 1854. The other article that Jamin wrote was titled ''"L'Optique et la Peinture," which translates as "Optics and Painting."'' This article was published on February 1 of 1857. Both of these articles were published during Jamin's time as the professor of physics at the École Polytechnique. *''La rosée, son histoire, son rôle'' (Dew, its history and its role), published in soft cover edition by VillaRrose Publishing 2004, — an article of Jamin in Revue des Deux Mondes, January 15, 1879. * ''Cours de physique de l'École Pólytechnique'' (Physics lessons from L'Ecole Polytechnique) publish by Gauthier-Villars, 1886.

Tributes

Jules Jamin's name is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower. His name is located on the side that faces

Grenelle Grenelle () is a neighbourhood in southwestern Paris, France. It is a part of the 15th arrondissement of the city. There is currently a Boulevard de Grenelle which runs along the North delimitation of the ''quartier'', and a Rue de Grenelle, ...

, a neighborhood located in the southwestern part of Paris. Jamin's areas of interest were not confined entirely to the sciences. He enjoyed studying the work of distinguished artists at the Louvre and was a talented artist himself. His family is in possession of many of his paintings, as is the church in his native commune of Termes.

References

Sources

and translated from the French Wikipedia article

External links

Nécrologie

Généalogie

Portrait

Open Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jamin, Jules 1818 births 1886 deaths People from Ardennes (department) French physicists Reims Officers of the French Academy of Sciences Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences Optical physicists Academic staff of École Polytechnique