Henri Hureau de Sénarmont () (6 September 1808 – 30 June 1862) was a French

mineralogist Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical mineralogy, optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifact (archaeology), artifacts. Specific s ...

and

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 was born in

Broué Broué () is a commune in the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France. Population See also *Communes of the Eure-et-Loir department The following is a list of the 363 communes of the Eure-et-Loir department of France. The communes ...

, Eure-et-Loir. From 1822 to 1826, he studied at the

École Polytechnique (, ; also known as Polytechnique or l'X ) is a ''grande école'' located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris. The school was founded in 1794 by mat ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, then furthered his education at the

École des Mines École or Ecole 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 * Éco ...

. During the course of his career, he became engineer-in-chief of

mines Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to: Extraction or digging *Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging *Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine Grammar *Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun Mi ...

, and professor of mineralogy and director of studies at the

in Paris.Henri Hureau de Sénarmont
biography at Molecular Expressions, ''micro.magnet.fsu.edu'', accessed 3 June 2023 Sénarmont was distinguished for his research on

polarization Polarization or polarisation may refer to: Mathematics *Polarization of an Abelian variety, in the mathematics of complex manifolds *Polarization of an algebraic form, a technique for expressing a homogeneous polynomial in a simpler fashion by ...

and demonstrating the

anisotropy Anisotropy () is the structural property of non-uniformity in different directions, as opposed to isotropy. An anisotropic object or pattern has properties that differ according to direction of measurement. For example, many materials exhibit ve ...

of heat diffusion in a crystal, and on the artificial formation of minerals. A polarized light retardation compensator known as a " Sénarmont prism polarizer" is named after him, as is senarmontite, a mineral that he described in 1851. He wrote essays and prepared maps on the

geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...

Seine-et-Marne Seine-et-Marne () is a department in the Île-de-France region in Northern France. Named after the rivers Seine and Marne, it is the region's largest department with an area of 5,915 square kilometres (2,284 square miles); it roughly covers its ...

and

Seine-et-Oise Seine-et-Oise () is a former department of France, which encompassed the western, northern and southern parts of the metropolitan area of Paris. Its prefecture was Versailles and its administrative number was 78. Seine-et-Oise was disbanded in ...

for the Geological Survey of France (1844). He admired the work of

Augustin 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 ...

, and endeavored to prepare of an entire edition of Fresnel's works. The project was far enough advanced prior to his death that it could be completed by other authors ("''Oeuvres complètes d'Augustin Fresnel''", 1866–70).œuvres complètes d'Augustin Fresnel, publiées par mm. Henri de Sénarmont, Èmile Verdet et Léonor Fresnel ...
''Catalog HathiTrust'', accessed 3 June 2023

References

External links

Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation, Volume 15
edited by Donald O. Thompson, Dale E. Chimenti 19th-century French geologists French mineralogists 1808 births 1862 deaths Members of the French Academy of Sciences People from Eure-et-Loir 19th-century French physicists {{geologist-stub