Jules Jamin

Jules Célestin Jamin (* May 30, 1818 in Termes, Ardennes, † February 12, 1886 in Paris) was a French physicist and mainly dealt with optics, electricity and magnetism. According to him, the Jamin interferometer is named.

Jamin went in Rems to school and in 1838 first in the competition for entry into the Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS ), where he studied and obtained his licentiate. In 1841, he was first in the competition for the Agrégation in physics. Afterwards, he was a high school teacher in Caen, at the Lycée Condorcet (then Bourbon college ) in Paris and from 1844 at the Lycée Louis- le -Grand. In 1847 he was awarded his doctorate on light reflection at metal surfaces ( Mémoire sur la reflexion métallique. Theses de physique et de chimie, présentées Faculté des sciences à la de Paris par ... Bachelier, Paris 1847). 1852 to 1881 he was professor of physics at the Ecole Polytechnique and from 1863 professor of experimental physics at the Faculté des Sciences in Paris. In 1868 he became director and founder of the Physics Laboratory at the École pratique des hautes études.

In 1858 he received the Rumford medal. In 1868 he became a member of the Academie des Sciences in 1882 and was its president in 1884 whose permanent secretary ( Secrétaire perpétuel ). In 1883 he became a foreign member of the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome

He dealt with optics (elliptical polarization of reflected light, among other things, the invention of the Jamin interferometer ) and among other things, electricity, magnetism, hygrometry, capillarity. His lectures in physics at the Ecole Polytechnique, he published in three volumes from 1858 to 1866.

Jamin was married since 1851. His daughter was the wife of Henri Becquerel, his son, the painter Paul Jamin ( 1853-1903 ).

He is immortalized in particular on the Eiffel Tower, see: The 72 names on the Eiffel Tower.