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| Foucault's Career and Offices |
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The starting point for the career of the self-taught man Léon Foucault was his employment as an assistant forthe public microscopy course of the hematologist Alfred Donné (1801–1878). However, Donné, who had been commissioned to report on the meetings of the French Académie des Sciences in the newspaper ”Journal des Débats”, soon transferred the responsibility for these courses to his assistant.
In 1848 Foucault improved the electrical arc lamp by inventing an automatic regulator. His impressive pendulum experiment in the Panthéon in Paris formed the basis of his invention of the gyroscope in 1852. He also constructed the precursor of the gyro compass which was later to replace the magnetic compass needle in steel ships. In his work on electricity and magnetism, he discovered the electrical eddy currents – also known as Foucault currents – in metals.
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| First gyro compass from the former firm Anschütz, now Raytheon Marine GmbH. | Drawing of a modern gyro compass. |
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In honor of his pioneering work, Foucault became a member of the Bureau des Longitudes in 1862 and of the Paris Académie des Sciences three years later. He was a member of the Berlin Akademie der Wissenschaften and the Royal Society in London. In 1865, two years before his death, he joined the Institut Francais. | |
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