Childhood & Early Life
Gabriel Lippmann was born on August 16, 1845 in Hollerich Luxembourg. His father Isale was a French-Jewish businessman who ran a family-owned glove making business at the convent in Bonnevoie. His mother was Miriam Rose Levy who was a homemaker.
In 1848 he moved to Paris with his family. There he was taught by his mother at home during his early childhood days.
He joined the ‘Lycee Napoleon’ which is presently known as ‘Lycee Henry-IV’ in 1858. After studying there for ten years he got admission in ‘Ecole Normale’ in Paris in 1868.
He failed to qualify in the examination for becoming a teacher as he studied only the subjects that interested him and neglected the rest. He was more interested in studying physics than anything else.
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Career
Gabriel Lippmann was appointed by the French government in 1873 to go on a mission to the Heidelberg University in Germany to understand the methods that were used to teach science subjects. Here he specialized in electricity with the help of Gustav Kirchoff.
He received his doctorate in 1874. In Berlin he worked with Helmholtz as well.
He returned to Paris in 1875 and continued his studies further on subjects related to physics.
On July 24, 1875 he submitted his PhD thesis on electro-capillarity to the Sorborne. In 1878 he became a professor of physics at the Sorbonne.
He joined the ‘Faculty of Science’ in Paris in 1878.
In 1881 he predicted the reverse effect of the piezoelectric phenomenon. This reverse phenomenon was later used to produce ultrasonic sound waves and other applications.
On January 17, 1883, he presented a paper on the invention of the capillary electrometer to the ‘Philosophical Society of Glasgow.’ The ‘Lippmann Electrometer’ was later used in the first ECG machine.
He became a professor of Mathematical Physics in 1883.
In 1886 he succeeded Jamin to become the Director of the ‘Research Laboratory’ after becoming a professor in ‘Experimental Physics’. He held this position till his death. The laboratory was transferred later to Sorborne.
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In 1886 he evolved a process in support of his theory for the reproduction of the colors of objects through photography without using any dye or pigment. However, it was very difficult to execute the process practically.
In 1891 he was able to present the method to the ‘Academy of Sciences’ after conducting a large number of experiments. The photographs were slightly defective owning to the sensitivity of the photographic film that differed in many areas.
In April 1892 he declared that he had been able to obtain the colored images of flags, oranges with red poppies, parrots with different colors without any deterioration in the quality of their colors.
In 1893 he was able to obtain a much better result for his method with photographs taken by A. and L. Lumiere. This time perfect colors were produced.
He published the complete theory of the process in 1894.
In 1895 Lippmann used photographic registration to remove the irregularities that occurred with pendulum clocks.
In 1906 he submitted another paper on the improved process of capturing colored images of items to the ‘Academy of Sciences’.
His experiments on color photography also contributed to the development of laser holography in the future.
He invented the device known as ‘coelostat’ that could immobilize the image of a star in the sky and its surroundings so that it could be photographed perfectly.
He is also responsible for improvements to many devices that are used in the study of physics that helped students later.
In 1908 he introduced the concept of integral photography where a number of lenses were kept in a single array to take a picture of a real life scene. The same scene seen through another similar array of lenses produced an integrated three dimensional image. This led to the evolution of microscope and light-field camera technologies.
He became the President of the ‘Academy of Sciences’ in 1912.
He became a member of the ‘Board of the Bureau des Longitudes’ and also a ‘Foreign Member’ of the ‘Royal Society of London’ during this time.
