Marcel Émile Verdet (; 13 March 1824 – 3 June 1866) was a French

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

. He worked in

magnetism Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that occur through a magnetic field, which allows objects to attract or repel each other. Because both electric currents and magnetic moments of elementary particles give rise to a magnetic field, ...

and

optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of optical instruments, instruments that use or Photodetector, detect it. Optics usually describes t ...

, editing the works of

Augustin-Jean Fresnel Augustin-Jean Fresnel (10 May 1788 – 14 July 1827) was a French civil engineer and physicist whose research in optics led to the almost unanimous acceptance of the wave theory of light, excluding any remnant of Isaac Newton, Newton's c ...

. Verdet did much to champion the early theory of the

conservation of energy The law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant; it is said to be Conservation law, ''conserved'' over time. In the case of a Closed system#In thermodynamics, closed system, the principle s ...

in France through his editorial supervision of the ''

Annales de chimie et de physique __NOTOC__ ''Annales de chimie et de physique'' (, ) is a scientific journal founded in Paris, France, in 1789 under the title ''Annales de chimie''. One of the early editors was the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier. Lavoisier, an aristocrat, was ...

''. The Verdet constant is named after him.

Books by Emile Verdet

Leçons d'optique physique. Tome I
(G. Masson, 1872)
Leçons d'optique physique. Tome II
(G. Masson, 1872)
Recherches sur les propriétés optiques développées dans les corps transparents par l'action du magnétisme
(Mallet-Bachelier, 1854)
Théorie mécanique de la chaleur. Tome I
(G. Masson, 1878)
Théorie mécanique de la chaleur. Tome II
(G. Masson, 1878)
Conférences de physique faites à l'Ecole Normale
(Masson, 1872)
Conférences de physique faites à l'Ecole Normale. Deuxième partie
(Masson, 1872)

External links

at Eric Weisstein's World of Physics 1824 births 1866 deaths French physicists École Normale Supérieure alumni {{france-physicist-stub