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Jonas Ferdinand Gabriel Lippmann (16 August 1845 – 13 July 1921) was a
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ish
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 caus ...
and
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, and
Nobel laureate 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 " ...
for his method of reproducing colours photographically based on the phenomenon of
interference Interference is the act of interfering, invading, or poaching. Interference may also refer to: Communications * Interference (communication), anything which alters, modifies, or disrupts a message * Adjacent-channel interference, caused by extra ...
. His parents were
French Jews The history of the Jews in France deals with Jews and Jewish communities in France since at least the Early Middle Ages. France was a centre of Jewish learning in the Middle Ages, but persecution increased over time, including multiple expulsio ...
.


Early life and education

Gabriel Lippmann was born in
Bonnevoie Bonnevoie ( lb, Bouneweg, german: Bonneweg) is an area of south-eastern Luxembourg City, in southern Luxembourg. It is divided between the quarters of North Bonnevoie-Verlorenkost and South Bonnevoie. It is the biggest neighbourhood in the cit ...
,
Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small land ...
(Luxembourgish: Bouneweg), on 16 August 1845. At the time, Bonnevoie was part of the commune of
Hollerich Hollerich ( lb, Hollerech) is a quarter in south-western Luxembourg City, in southern Luxembourg. , the quarter has a population of 7,132 inhabitants. Hollerich railway station is located on Chemins de Fer Luxembourgeois Line 70, which con ...
(Luxembourgish: Hollerech) which is often given as his place of birth. (Both places, Bonnevoie and Hollerich, are now districts of Luxembourg City.) His father, Isaïe, a French Jew born in Ennery near
Metz Metz ( , , lat, Divodurum Mediomatricorum, then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Grand Es ...
, managed the family glove-making business at the former convent in Bonnevoie. In 1848, the family moved to
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
where Lippmann was initially tutored by his mother, Miriam Rose (Lévy), before attending the Lycée Napoléon (now
Lycée Henri-IV The Lycée Henri-IV is a public secondary school located in Paris. Along with the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, it is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious and demanding sixth-form colleges ('' lycées'') in France. The school educates more tha ...
). He was said to have been a rather inattentive but thoughtful pupil with a special interest in mathematics. In 1868, he was admitted to the
École normale supérieure École 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 * École, Savo ...
in Paris where he failed the
agrégation In France, the ''agrégation'' () is a competitive examination for civil service in the French public education system. Candidates for the examination, or ''agrégatifs'', become ''agrégés'' once they are admitted to the position of ''profes ...
examination which would have enabled him to enter the teaching profession, preferring instead to study physics. In 1872, the French government sent him on a mission to Heidelberg University where he was able to specialize in electricity with the encouragement of Gustav Kirchhoff, receiving a doctorate with "summa cum laude" distinction in 1874.Jacques Bintz, "Gabriel Lippmann 1845–1921"
in ''Gabriel Lippmann: Commémoration par la section des sciences naturelles, physiques et mathématiques de l’Institut grand-ducal de Luxembourg du 150e anniversaire du savant né au Luxembourg, lauréat du prix Nobel en 1908'' (Luxembourg: Section des sciences naturelles, physiques et mathématiques de l’Institut grand-ducal de Luxembourg en collaboration avec le Séminaire de mathématique et le Séminaire d’histoire des sciences et de la médecine du centre universitaire de Luxembourg, 1997), ''Jean-Paul Pier & Jos. A. Massard: éditeurs'', Luxembourg 1997. Retrieved 4 December 2010.
Lippmann then returned to Paris in 1875, where he continued to study until 1878, when he became professor of physics at the
Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...
.Josef Maria Eder, ''History of Photography'', 4th ed. (New York: Dover, 1978; ), p. 668. (This Dover edition reproduces the Columbia University Press edition of 1945; the book was originally published in 1932 as ''Geschichte der Photographie.'')From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1901–1921, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1967


Career

Lippmann made several important contributions to various branches of physics over the years.


The capillary electrometer

One of Lippmann's early discoveries was the relationship between electrical and capillary phenomena which allowed him to develop a sensitive capillary electrometer, subsequently known as the
Lippmann electrometer A Lippmann electrometer is a device for detecting small rushes of electric current and was invented by Gabriel Lippmann in 1873.Fritz Scholz''Electroanalytical Methods: Guide to Experiments and Applications'' 2nd ed., Springer, 2010. The device ...
which was used in the first
ECG Electrocardiography is the process of producing an electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG), a recording of the heart's electrical activity. It is an electrogram of the heart which is a graph of voltage versus time of the electrical activity of the hear ...
machine. In a paper delivered to the Philosophical Society of Glasgow on 17 January 1883, John G. M'Kendrick described the apparatus as follows: :Lippmann's electrometer consists of a tube of ordinary glass, 1 metre long and 7 millimetres in diameter, open at both ends, and kept in the vertical position by a stout support. The lower end is drawn into a capillary point, until the diameter of the capillary is .005 of a millimetre. The tube is filled with mercury, and the capillary point is immersed in dilute sulphuric acid (1 to 6 of water in volume), and in the bottom of the vessel containing the acid there is a little more mercury. A platinum wire is put into connection with the mercury in each tube, and, finally, arrangements are made by which the capillary point can be seen with a microscope magnifying 250 diameters. Such an instrument is very sensitive; and Lippmann states that it is possible to determine a difference of potential so small as that of one 10,080th of a Daniell. It is thus a very delicate means of observing and (as it can be graduated by a compensation-method) of measuring minute electromotive forces. Lippmann's PhD thesis, presented to the Sorbonne on 24 July 1875, was on
electrocapillarity Electrocapillarity or electrocapillary phenomena are the phenomena related to changes in the surface energy (or interfacial tension) of the dropping mercury electrode (DME), or in principle, any electrode, as the electrode potential changes or the ...
.


Piezoelectricity

In 1881, Lippmann predicted the converse piezoelectric effect.


Colour photography

Above all, Lippmann is remembered as the inventor of a method for reproducing colours by photography, based on the interference phenomenon, which earned him 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 " ...
for 1908. In 1886, Lippmann's interest turned to a method of fixing the colours of the
solar spectrum Sunlight is a portion of the electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun, in particular infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light. On Earth, sunlight is scattered and filtered through Earth's atmosphere, and is obvious as daylight when th ...
on a
photographic plate Photographic plates preceded photographic film as a capture medium in photography, and were still used in some communities up until the late 20th century. The light-sensitive emulsion of silver salts was coated on a glass plate, typically thin ...
. On 2 February 1891, he announced to the Academy of Sciences: "I have succeeded in obtaining the image of the spectrum with its colours on a photographic plate whereby the image remains fixed and can remain in daylight without deterioration." By April 1892, he was able to report that he had succeeded in producing colour images of a stained glass window, a group of flags, a bowl of oranges topped by a red poppy and a multicoloured parrot. He presented his theory of colour photography using the interference method in two papers to the Academy, one in 1894, the other in 1906. The interference phenomenon in optics occurs as a result of the
wave propagation Wave propagation is any of the ways in which waves travel. Single wave propagation can be calculated by 2nd order wave equation (standing wavefield) or 1st order one-way wave equation. With respect to the direction of the oscillation relative to ...
of
light Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 terahe ...
. When light of a given wavelength is reflected back upon itself by a mirror,
standing wave In physics, a standing wave, also known as a stationary wave, is a wave that oscillates in time but whose peak amplitude profile does not move in space. The peak amplitude of the wave oscillations at any point in space is constant with respect ...
s are generated, much as the ripples resulting from a stone dropped into still water create standing waves when reflected back by a surface such as the wall of a pool. In the case of ordinary incoherent light, the standing waves are distinct only within a microscopically thin volume of space next to the reflecting surface. Lippmann made use of this phenomenon by projecting an image onto a special
photographic plate Photographic plates preceded photographic film as a capture medium in photography, and were still used in some communities up until the late 20th century. The light-sensitive emulsion of silver salts was coated on a glass plate, typically thin ...
capable of recording detail smaller than the
wavelength In physics, the wavelength is the spatial period of a periodic wave—the distance over which the wave's shape repeats. It is the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same phase on the wave, such as two adjacent crests, tro ...
s of visible light. The light passed through the supporting glass sheet into a very thin and nearly transparent
photographic emulsion Photographic emulsion is a light-sensitive colloid used in film-based photography. Most commonly, in silver-gelatin photography, it consists of silver halide crystals dispersed in gelatin. The emulsion is usually coated onto a substrate of glas ...
containing sub microscopically small
silver halide A silver halide (or silver salt) is one of the chemical compounds that can form between the element silver (Ag) and one of the halogens. In particular, bromine (Br), chlorine (Cl), iodine (I) and fluorine (F) may each combine with silver to prod ...
grains. A temporary mirror of liquid mercury in intimate contact reflected the light back through the emulsion, creating standing waves whose nodes had little effect while their
antinodes A node is a point along a standing wave where the wave has minimum amplitude. For instance, in a vibrating guitar string, the ends of the string are nodes. By changing the position of the end node through frets, the guitarist changes the effect ...
created a
latent image {{citations needed, date=November 2015 A latent image is an invisible image produced by the exposure to light of a photosensitive material such as photographic film. When photographic film is developed, the area that was exposed darkens and forms ...
. After
development Development or developing may refer to: Arts *Development hell, when a project is stuck in development *Filmmaking, development phase, including finance and budgeting *Development (music), the process thematic material is reshaped *Photographi ...
, the result was a structure of laminae, distinct parallel layers composed of submicroscopic metallic silver grains, which was a permanent record of the standing waves. In each part of the image, the spacing of the laminae corresponded to the half-wavelengths of the light photographed. The finished plate was illuminated from the front at a nearly
perpendicular In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the ''perpendicular symbol'', ⟂. It can ...
angle, using daylight or another source of white light containing the full range of wavelengths in the
visible spectrum The visible spectrum is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to the human eye. Electromagnetic radiation in this range of wavelengths is called ''visible light'' or simply light. A typical human eye will respond to wavele ...
. At each point on the plate, light of approximately the same wavelength as the light which had generated the laminae was strongly reflected back toward the viewer. Light of other wavelengths which was not absorbed or scattered by the silver grains simply passed through the emulsion, usually to be absorbed by a black anti-reflection coating applied to the back of the plate after it had been developed. The wavelengths, and therefore the colours, of the light which had formed the original image were thus reconstituted and a full-colour image was seen.Klaus Biedermann, "Lippmann's and Gabor's Revolutionary Approach to Imaging"
''Nobelprize.org''. Retrieved 6 December 2010.
In practice, the Lippmann process was not easy to use. Extremely fine-grained high-resolution
photographic emulsion Photographic emulsion is a light-sensitive colloid used in film-based photography. Most commonly, in silver-gelatin photography, it consists of silver halide crystals dispersed in gelatin. The emulsion is usually coated onto a substrate of glas ...
s are inherently much less light-sensitive than ordinary emulsions, so long exposure times were required. With a lens of large aperture and a very brightly sunlit subject, a camera exposure of less than one minute was sometimes possible, but exposures measured in minutes were typical. Pure spectral colours reproduced brilliantly, but the ill-defined broad bands of wavelengths reflected by real-world objects could be problematic. The process did not produce colour prints on paper and it proved impossible to make a good duplicate of a Lippmann colour photograph by rephotographing it, so each image was unique. A very shallow-angled prism was usually cemented to the front of the finished plate to deflect unwanted surface reflections, and this made plates of any substantial size impractical. The lighting and viewing arrangement required to see the colours to best effect precluded casual use. Although the special plates and a plate holder with a built-in mercury reservoir were commercially available for a few years circa 1900, even expert users found consistent good results elusive and the process never graduated from being a scientifically elegant laboratory curiosity. It did, however, stimulate interest in the further development of
colour photography Color photography is photography that uses media capable of capturing and reproducing colors. By contrast, black-and-white or gray-monochrome photography records only a single channel of luminance (brightness) and uses media capable only of ...
. Lippmann's process foreshadowed
laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The firs ...
holography Holography is a technique that enables a wavefront to be recorded and later re-constructed. Holography is best known as a method of generating real three-dimensional images, but it also has a wide range of other Holography#Applications, applic ...
, which is also based on recording standing waves in a photographic medium. Denisyuk reflection holograms, often referred to as Lippmann-Bragg holograms, have similar laminar structures that preferentially reflect certain wavelengths. In the case of actual multiple-wavelength colour holograms of this type, the colour information is recorded and reproduced just as in the Lippmann process, except that the highly coherent laser light passing through the recording medium and reflected back from the subject generates the required distinct standing waves throughout a relatively large volume of space, eliminating the need for reflection to occur immediately adjacent to the recording medium. Unlike Lippmann colour photography, however, the lasers, the subject and the recording medium must all be kept stable to within one quarter of a wavelength during the exposure in order for the standing waves to be recorded adequately or at all.


Integral photography

In 1908, Lippmann introduced what he called "integral photography", in which a plane array of closely spaced, small, spherical lenses is used to photograph a scene, recording images of the scene as it appears from many slightly different horizontal and vertical locations. When the resulting images are rectified and viewed through a similar array of lenses, a single integrated image, composed of small portions of all the images, is seen by each eye. The position of the eye determines which parts of the small images it sees. The effect is that the visual geometry of the original scene is reconstructed, so that the limits of the array seem to be the edges of a window through which the scene appears life-size and in three dimensions, realistically exhibiting parallax and perspective shift with any change in the position of the observer. This principle of using numerous lenses or imaging apertures to record what was later termed a
light field The light field is a vector function that describes the amount of light flowing in every direction through every point in space. The space of all possible ''light rays'' is given by the five-dimensional plenoptic function, and the magnitude of ea ...
underlies the evolving technology of light-field cameras and microscopes. When Lippmann presented the theoretical foundations of his "integral photography" in March 1908, it was impossible to accompany them with concrete results. At the time, the materials necessary for producing a lenticular screen with the proper optical qualities were lacking. In the 1920s, promising trials were made by Eugène Estanave, using glass Stanhope lenses, and by
Louis Lumière Louis Jean Lumière (5 October 1864 Besançon – 6 June 1948, Bandol) was a French engineer and industrialist who played a key role in the development of photography and cinema. Early life and education Lumière was one of four children of ...
, using celluloid. Lippmann's integral photography was the foundation of research on 3D and animated lenticular imagery and also on color
lenticular Lenticular is an adjective often relating to lenses. It may refer to: * A term used with two meanings in botany: see * Lenticular cloud, a lens-shaped cloud * Lenticular galaxy, a lens-shaped galaxy * Lenticular (geology), adjective describing a ...
processes.


Measurement of time

In 1895, Lippmann evolved a method of eliminating the
personal equation The term personal equation, in 19th- and early 20th-century science, referred to the idea that every individual observer had an inherent bias when it came to measurements and observations. Astronomy The term originated in astronomy, when it was d ...
in measurements of time, using photographic registration, and he studied the eradication of irregularities of
pendulum clock A pendulum clock is a clock that uses a pendulum, a swinging weight, as its timekeeping element. The advantage of a pendulum for timekeeping is that it is a harmonic oscillator: It swings back and forth in a precise time interval dependent on i ...
s, devising a method of comparing the times of oscillation of two pendulums of nearly equal period.


The coelostat

Lippmann also invented the coelostat, an astronomical tool that compensated for the Earth's rotation and allowed a region of the sky to be photographed without apparent movement.


Academic affiliations

Lippmann was a member of the
Academy of Sciences An academy of sciences is a type of learned society or academy (as special scientific institution) dedicated to sciences that may or may not be state funded. Some state funded academies are tuned into national or royal (in case of the Unite ...
from 8 February 1886 until his death, serving as its president in 1912. In addition, he was a Foreign Member of the
Royal Society of London 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, r ...
, a member of the
Bureau des Longitudes Bureau ( ) may refer to: Agencies and organizations *Government agency *Public administration * News bureau, an office for gathering or distributing news, generally for a given geographical location * Bureau (European Parliament), the administra ...
, and a member of the
Grand Ducal Institute Grand Ducal Institute () is the national academy of Luxembourg. It is based in Luxembourg City, in the south of the country. The Institute incorporates six subsections, each dedicated to a separate field of academic research: * History (''Sectio ...
of Luxembourg. He became a member of the
Société française de photographie The Société française de photographie (SFP) is an association, founded on 15 November 1854, devoted to the history of photography. It has a large collection of photographs and old cameras. Among the founding members were Olympe Aguado, Hippo ...
in 1892 and its president from 1896 to 1899. Lippmann was one of the founders of the Institut d'optique théorique et appliquée in France. Lippmann was the President of the Société Astronomique de France (SAF), the French astronomical society, from 1903–1904.de la Société astronomique de France'', 1911, vol. 25, pp. 581–586
/ref>


Honours

In Luxembourg City an Institute for fundamental scientific research was named after Lippmann (''Centre de Recherche Public Gabriel Lippmann'') which merged on 1 January 2015 with another major research centre to form the new Luxembourg Institute for Science and Technology (LIST).


Personal life

Lippmann married the daughter of the novelist
Victor Cherbuliez Charles Victor Cherbuliez (; 19 July 1829 – 1 or 2 July 1899)Victor Cherbuliez
in the
He died on 13 July 1921 aboard the steamer ''France'' while en route from Canada.Gabriel Lippmann, Scientist, Dies at Sea
, ''The New York Times'', 14 July 1921.


See also

*
Autostereoscopy Autostereoscopy is any method of displaying stereoscopic images (adding binocular perception of 3D depth) without the use of special headgear, glasses, something that affects vision, or anything for eyes on the part of the viewer. Because headg ...
*
Brownian ratchet In the philosophy of thermal and statistical physics, the Brownian ratchet or Feynman–Smoluchowski ratchet is an apparent perpetual motion machine of the second kind (converting thermal energy into mechanical work), first analysed in 1912 as a ...
* Light field camera *
List of Jewish Nobel laureates Nobel Prizes have been awarded to over 900 individuals, of whom at least 20% were Jews. * * * * * * * * The number of Jews receiving Nobel prizes has been the subject of some attention.* * *"Jews rank high among winners of Nobel, but why ...


References


Further reading

* J.P. Pier & J.A. Massard (eds) (1997
''Gabriel Lippmann: Commémoration par la section des sciences naturelles, physiques et mathématiques de l’Institut grand-ducal de Luxembourg du 150e anniversaire du savant né au Luxembourg, lauréat du prix Nobel en 1908.''
Luxembourg, Section des sciences naturelles, physiques et mathématiques de l’Institut grand-ducal de Luxembourg en collaboration avec le Séminaire de mathématique et le Séminaire d’histoire des sciences et de la médecine du centre universitaire de Luxembourg, 139 p. * Lebon, Ernest, "Savants du jour : biographie, bibliographie analytique des écrits", comprenant Portrait de Gabriel Lippmann. – 1911. p. 70, Gauthier-Villars (Paris), 1909–1913. * Isabelle Bergoend,
Le Dagobert optique
', Editions Thierry Marchaisse, 2015.


External links

* including the Nobel Lecture, 14 December 1908 ''Colour Photography''
Gabriel Lippmann in Jewish Encyclopedia

Centre de Recherche Public – Gabriel Lippmann
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lippmann, Gabriel 1845 births 1921 deaths Nobel laureates in Physics French Nobel laureates 20th-century physicists École Normale Supérieure alumni Lycée Henri-IV alumni Color scientists Experimental physicists Members of the French Academy of Sciences Foreign Members of the Royal Society Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences Corresponding Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1917–1925) 19th-century French Jews French physicists Luxembourgian inventors Luxembourgian Jews Luxembourgian Nobel laureates People from Luxembourg City People who died at sea Jewish physicists Luxembourgian people of French descent Presidents of the Société Française de Physique