Jean-Baptiste Alfred Perot (; 3 November 1863 – 28 November 1925) 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 ...

. Together with his colleague Charles Fabry he developed the

Fabry–Pérot interferometer In optics, a Fabry–Pérot interferometer (FPI) or etalon is an optical cavity made from two parallel reflecting surfaces (i.e.: thin mirrors). Optical waves can pass through the optical cavity only when they are in resonance with it. It is ...

in 1899. The

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...

awarded him the Janssen Medal for 1912. 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 ...

awarded Fabry and Perot the Rumford medal in 1918.

Spelling

There is some confusion about the spelling of Perot's last name. Perot himself used the spelling ''Pérot'' in some scientific publications, but according to the French

civil registry Civil registration is the system by which a government records the vital events ( births, marriages, and deaths) of its citizens and residents. The resulting repository or database has different names in different countries and even in diffe ...

, his

family name In many societies, a surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. It is typically combined with a given name to form the full name of a person, although several give ...

was ''Perot'', without accent. (inset "Pérot ou Perot?" on the second page. Translation: "In the previous issue...we wrote "Pérot", after the spelling that Alfred Perot himself used to sign his articles. Several readers pointed out to us that the "official" spelling — that is, the one used on the birth certificate — does not have an accent.")

References

External links

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"Alfred Perot, un expérimentateur et inventeur de talent"
A good biography, in French. 1863 births 1925 deaths French physicists French optical physicists {{france-physicist-stub