French Inventions - Physics, Mathematics & Measure

Physics, Mathematics & Measure

• Cartesian Coordinate System by René Descartes in 1637 (and independently by Pierre de Fermat at the same period).
• The calculator by Blaise Pascal (Pascaline) in 1642. (see also Adding machine)
• Probability theory by Pierre de Fermat and Blaise Pascal in the seventeenth century (with Gerolamo Cardano and Christiaan Huygens).
• Vernier scale by Pierre Vernier in 1631.
• Spirit level by Melchisédech Thévenot in 1661.
• Roberval Balance by Gilles de Roberval in 1669.
• Réaumur scale by René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur in 1730.
• Pitot tube by Henri Pitot in 1732 and modified to its modern form in the mid-19th century by Henry Darcy.
• The conservation of mass by Antoine Lavoisier (18th century).
• Metric system during the French Revolution. and several measures used in physics in the SI.
• Laplace's equation, Laplace operator, Laplace transform, Laplace distribution, Laplace's demon, Laplace expansion, Young–Laplace equation, Laplace number, Laplace limit, Laplace invariant, Laplace principle, proof that every equation of an even degree must have at least one real quadratic factor, solution of the linear partial differential equation of the second order and general proof of the Lagrange reversion theorem by Pierre-Simon Laplace in the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century.
• The Gay-lussac Scale used by hydrometers and alcoholometers by Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (after an idea of Jacques Charles).

• Arithmometer by Thomas de Colmar in 1820.
• Dynamometer by Gaspard de Prony (de Prony brake) in 1821.
• Electrometer by Jean Peltier.
• Foucault pendulum by Léon Foucault (who also developed and named the Gyroscope) in February 1851 in the Meridian of the Paris Observatory.
• Ocean thermal energy conversion in 1881 by Jacques-Arsène d'Arsonval (first OTEC plant in 1930 in Cuba by his student Georges Claude).
• Radioactivity by Henri Becquerel in 1896.
• Theorical foundations and mathematical framework of Special relativity by Henri Poincaré, before Albert Einstein used his work in 1905 and later.
• Integral imaging by Gabriel Lippmann on March 3, 1908.
• Darrieus wind turbine by Georges Jean Marie Darrieus in 1931.
• Optical pumping by Alfred Kastler in the early 1950s.
• The multiwire proportional chamber by Georges Charpak in 1968.