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 ...

, 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 it ...

, 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 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 pri ...

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 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 T ...

, 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, serving at the

Observatoire de Paris The Paris Observatory (french: Observatoire de Paris ), a research institution of the Paris Sciences et Lettres University, is the foremost astronomical observatory of France, and one of the largest astronomical centers in the world. Its histo ...

—Section de Meudon. He conducted several experiments with

thermostatic Thermostatic is a Swedish electronic band, formed in Gothenburg in 2003. Their music can be said to fall within the genre categories of bitpop and synthpop, with the band inspired by the "video games and computer era of the eighties." History ...

measurements at the observatory.

Nickel-steel alloy

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

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 kinetic ...

, 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, making it useful in constructing instruments with springs that need to be unaffected by varying temperature, such as the marine chronometer. Elinvar is also non-magnetic, which is a secondary useful property for

antimagnetic watch Anti-magnetic (non-magnetic) watches are those that are able to run with minimal deviation when exposed to a certain level of magnetic field. The International Organization for Standardization issued a standard for magnetic-resistant watches, whic ...

es.

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 Plasma cosmology is a non-standard cosmology whose central postulate is that the dynamics of ionized gases and plasmas play important, if not dominant, roles in the physics of the universe at interstellar and intergalactic scales. recount: It ...

, 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 space ...

. 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 clo ...

, 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 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 * 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 __NOTOC__ Year 907 ( CMVII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Rus'–Byzantine War: Varangian prince Oleg of Novgorod leads the K ...

''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 p ...

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