Bernard Brunhes

Bernard Brunhes (* 1867 in Toulouse, † 1910 in Clermont- Ferrand ). Was a French geophysicist, a pioneer of paleomagnetism and Director of the Observatory on the Puy de Dôme 1900-1909 He discovered in 1906 in the study of the magnetization of volcanic rock samples, that the Earth's magnetic field is umpolte throughout the earth.

Brunhes studied at the Ecole Normale Superieure with an associate's degree ( Agrégé ) in physics. He was from 1893 ( after he had graduated in 1893 internal reflection in crystals ) Maitre de Conférence at the University of Lille and taught from 1893 to 1895 Physics and Electrical Engineering at the Institute industriel du Nord ( Ecole Centrale de Lille). After that, he was a professor at the University of Dijon and Clermont -Ferrand. In November 1900 he became director of about 15 km from Clermont- Ferrand remote observatory on the Puy de Dôme in the Massif Central, which is located on a former volcano. He remained there until his death.

In 1905, he discovered that the rocks of a lava flow at Pont Farin (then Pontfarein ) 20 km west of Saint -Flour (Cantal ) had a magnetic polarization ( the enclosed iron minerals ) almost opposite the present geomagnetic field. He unlocked a reversal of the geomagnetic field, an idea that is only in the 1950s ( with paleomagnetic research by PMS Blackett, Keith Runcorn and others) generally prevailed.

With his brother, the geographer Jean Brunhes (1869-1930), he was a 1898 member of the Société de la Haute- Auvergne, a regional scientific society since its inception.

With J. Blondin 1890 he gave the lectures of Henri Poincaré on electricity and optics out. He self-published lectures on electricity and in the book La dégradation de l' energy including through the progressive deforestation and soil erosion through the private use of municipal land in France.

Writings

  • Cours élémentaire l'Electricité et principes Lois EXPERIMENTALES généraux. Introduction à l' électrotechnique. Leçons professées à l'Institut industriel du Nord de la France, Gauthier -Villars, 1895
  • Sur le principe d' Huygens et sur ​​quelques Conséquences you theorems de Kirchhoff, Lille, au siège of Facultés, 1895
  • La de l' énergie dégradation, Flammarion, 1909, reprint 1991
Saint-Flour (Cantal) Integrated Authority File
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