Paul-Gustave Froment (born March 3, 1815 in Paris, died 1865) was a French mechanic, instrument maker and inventor.

Life

He was born 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 ...

and was educated at the Collège Sainte-Barbe and the

Lycée Louis-le-Grand The Lycée Louis-le-Grand (), also referred to simply as Louis-le-Grand or by its acronym LLG, is a public Lycée (French secondary school, also known as sixth form college) located on rue Saint-Jacques in central Paris. It was founded in the ...

. Having demonstrated from childhood talent for technology, his father decided to let him study at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. He later moved to Britain to continue his studies in Manchester. He was also one of the earliest photographers, working with the Direct Positive Process. On his return to France, his intention was to build steam engines but he was prevented from doing so by lack of funds. Instead, he opened a Paris workshop in 1844 where, among other things, he worked on a telegraph with written and keyboard signals, improved Gaetan Bonelli's electric loom, and helped William Hughes improve his early typewriter. He also worked on the gyroscope with

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 ...

, for whom he also made the pendulum for his famous demonstration in 1851. In 1854 he built a simpler and improved version of Charles Shepherd's electromechanical clock. He is best known for designing early electric motors for industrial use, for which he was awarded the valuable

Volta Prize The Volta Prize (French: ''prix Volta'') was originally established by Napoleon III during the Second French Empire in 1852 to honor Alessandro Volta, an Italian physicist noted for developing the electric battery.John L. Davis. Artisans and savan ...

in 1857. In his design electromagnets were energized to attract iron rods attached to a rotating flywheel. At the moment that an iron rod reached the electromagnet, the power to the solenoid was interrupted until the next iron rod approached the electromagnet. On his death in 1865 he was buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris.

References

* Article based on equivalent articles on French, Dutch and German Wikipedia

External links

Froment motors
{{DEFAULTSORT:Froment, Paul-Gustave 1815 births 1865 deaths Engineers from Paris 19th-century French inventors