Gabriel Lippmann

Gabriel Lippmann died on July 13, 1921 on board the vessel ‘France’ while returning from Canada where he had gone as a member of a mission headed by Marshall Fayolle.

Gabriel Lippmann was born on August 16, 1845 in Hollerich Luxembourg. His father Isale was a French-Jewish businessman who ran a family-owned glove making business at the convent in Bonnevoie. His mother was Miriam Rose Levy who was a homemaker.

In 1848 he moved to Paris with his family. There he was taught by his mother at home during his early childhood days.

He joined the ‘Lycee Napoleon’ which is presently known as ‘Lycee Henry-IV’ in 1858. After studying there for ten years he got admission in ‘Ecole Normale’ in Paris in 1868.

He failed to qualify in the examination for becoming a teacher as he studied only the subjects that interested him and neglected the rest. He was more interested in studying physics than anything else.

Gabriel Lippmann was appointed by the French government in 1873 to go on a mission to the Heidelberg University in Germany to understand the methods that were used to teach science subjects. Here he specialized in electricity with the help of Gustav Kirchoff.

He received his doctorate in 1874. In Berlin he worked with Helmholtz as well.

He returned to Paris in 1875 and continued his studies further on subjects related to physics.

On July 24, 1875 he submitted his PhD thesis on electro-capillarity to the Sorborne. In 1878 he became a professor of physics at the Sorbonne.

He joined the ‘Faculty of Science’ in Paris in 1878.

Gabriel Lippmann received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1908 for his work on the reproduction of colors in photography with the help of the interference phenomenon.