Charles Édouard Guillaume (15 February 1861, in

Fleurier Fleurier was a municipality in the district of Val-de-Travers in the canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. On 1 January 2009, the former municipalities of Boveresse, Buttes, Couvet, Fleurier, Les Bayards, Môtiers, Noiraigue, Saint-Sulpice and ...

, Switzerland – 13 May 1938, in

Sèvres Sèvres (, ) is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris, in the Hauts-de-Seine department, Île-de-France region. The commune, which had a population of 23,251 as of 2018, is known for ...

, France) was a Swiss physicist who received the

Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

in 1920 in recognition of the service he had rendered to precision measurements in

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 ...

by his discovery of anomalies in nickel steel alloys. In 1919, he gave the fifth

Guthrie Lecture The Michael Faraday Medal and Prize is a gold medal awarded annually by the Institute of Physics in experimental physics. The award is made "for outstanding and sustained contributions to experimental physics." The medal is accompanied by a pr ...

at the Institute of Physics in London with the title "The Anomaly of the Nickel-Steels".

Personal life

Charles-Edouard Guillaume was born in Fleurier, Switzerland, on February 15, 1861. Guillaume received his early education in Neuchâtel, and obtained a doctoral degree in Physics at ETH Zurich in 1883. Guillaume was married in 1888 to A.M. Taufflieb, with whom he had three children. He died on 13 May, 1938 at

aged 77.

Scientific career

Guillaume was head of the

International Bureau of Weights and Measures The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (french: Bureau international des poids et mesures, BIPM) is an intergovernmental organisation, through which its 59 member-states act together on measurement standards in four areas: chemistry ...

.Gould, p.201. He also worked with

Kristian Birkeland Kristian Olaf Bernhard Birkeland (13 December 1867 – 15 June 1917) was a Norwegian scientist. He is best remembered for his theories of atmospheric electric currents that elucidated the nature of the aurora borealis. In order to fund his res ...

, serving at the Observatoire de Paris—Section de Meudon. He conducted several

experiment An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into Causality, cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome oc ...

s with thermostatic measurements at the observatory.

Nickel-steel alloy

Guillaume is known for his discovery of nickel-steel alloys he named

invar Invar, also known generically as FeNi36 (64FeNi in the US), is a nickel–iron alloy notable for its uniquely low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE or α). The name ''Invar'' comes from the word ''invariable'', referring to its relative lac ...

elinvar Elinvar is a nickel–iron–chromium alloy notable for having a modulus of elasticity which does not change much with temperature changes. The name is a contraction of the French ('invariable elasticity'). It was invented by Charles Édouard Guil ...

and platanite, also known as red platinum. Invar has a near-zero

coefficient of thermal expansion Thermal expansion is the tendency of matter to change its shape, area, volume, and density in response to a change in temperature, usually not including phase transitions. Temperature is a monotonic function of the average molecular kineti ...

, making it useful in constructing precision instruments whose dimensions need to remain constant in spite of varying temperature. Elinvar has a near-zero thermal coefficient of the

modulus of elasticity An elastic modulus (also known as modulus of elasticity) is the unit of measurement of an object's or substance's resistance to being deformed elastically (i.e., non-permanently) when a stress is applied to it. The elastic modulus of an object is ...

, making it useful in constructing instruments with springs that need to be unaffected by varying temperature, such as the

marine chronometer A marine chronometer is a precision timepiece that is carried on a ship and employed in the determination of the ship's position by celestial navigation. It is used to determine longitude by comparing Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), or in the modern ...

. Elinvar is also non-magnetic, which is a secondary useful property for antimagnetic watches.

Space radiation

Guillaume is also known for the ''earliest'' estimation of the "radiation of the stars” in his 1896 paper "La Température de L'Espace (The Temperature of Space)". This publication made him a pioneer in plasma cosmology, the study of conditions far from any particular star. The concept would later be known as the

Cosmic microwave background In Big Bang cosmology the cosmic microwave background (CMB, CMBR) is electromagnetic radiation that is a remnant from an early stage of the universe, also known as "relic radiation". The CMB is faint cosmic background radiation filling all spac ...

. He was one of the first people in history to estimate the temperature of space, as 5-6 K.

Horology

As the son of a Swiss

horologist Horology (; related to Latin '; ; , interfix ''-o-'', and suffix '' -logy''), . is the study of the measurement of time. Clocks, watches, clockwork, sundials, hourglasses, clepsydras, timers, time recorders, marine chronometers, and atomic ...

, Guillaume took an interest in marine chronometers. For use as the compensation balance he developed a slight variation of the invar alloy which had a negative quadratic coefficient of expansion. The purpose of doing this was to eliminate the "middle temperature" error of the balance wheel. The ''Guillaume Balance'' (a type of

balance wheel A balance wheel, or balance, is the timekeeping device used in mechanical watches and small clocks, analogous to the pendulum in a pendulum clock. It is a weighted wheel that rotates back and forth, being returned toward its center position by a ...

) in

horology Horology (; related to Latin '; ; , interfix ''-o-'', and suffix ''-logy''), . is the study of the measurement of time. Clocks, watches, clockwork, sundials, hourglasses, clepsydras, timers, time recorders, marine chronometers, and atomic clo ...

is named after him.

Publications

* 1896: ''La Température de L'Espace'' (The Temperature of Space) * 1886: ''Études thermométriques'' (Studies on Thermometry) * 1889
Traité de thermométrie de Precision
(Treatise on Thermometry) via

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

* 1894: ''Unités et Étalons'' (Units and Standards) * 1896
Les rayons X et la Photographie a traves les corps opaques
(X-Rays) via Internet Archive * 1898: ''Recherches sur le nickel et ses alliages'' (Investigations on Nickel and its Alloys) * 1899: ''La vie de la matière'' (The Life of Matter) * 1902: * 1904
Les applications des aciers au nickel
(Applications of Nickel-Steels) via Internet Archive * 1907: ''Des états de la matière'' (States of Matter) * 1909: ''Initiation à la Mécanique'' (Introduction to Mechanics
Hathi Trust record
* 1913: 907''Les récents progrès du système métrique'' (Recent progress in the Metric System)

Notes

References

* Nobel Lectures, Physics 1901–1921, "
Charles-Edouard Guillaume
– Biography''". Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam. * Rupert Thomas Gould (1960) ''The Marine Chronometer: its history and development'', Holland Press.
C.E. Guillaume
in

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

1934

External links

* * * including the Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1920 ''Invar and Elinvar'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Guillaume, Charles Edouard 1861 births 1938 deaths 20th-century Swiss physicists People from Val-de-Travers District Experimental physicists ETH Zurich alumni Nobel laureates in Physics Swiss Nobel laureates 19th-century Swiss physicists Swiss Protestants