Paul-Quentin Desains, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetPaul-Quentin Desains
French physicist
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Saint-Quentin, Hauts-de-France, France
About Paul-Quentin Desains
- Paul-Quentin Desains (12 July 1817 – 3 May 1885) was a French physicist. He was born at Saint-Quentin, Aisne, France.
- He studied literature at the Collège des Bons-Enfants in his native town and then entered the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris.
- Here he distinguished himself, taking the first prize in physics.
- In 1835 he entered the science section of the Ecole Normale where his brother Edouard had preceded him.
- He made the acquaintance there of La Provostaye who was at the time a surveillant and who became his lifelong friend and his associate in his researches.
- After completing his course, he accepted a professorship in 1839 at Caen, and in 1841 returned to Paris where he received similar appointments, first at the Lycée St-Louis and later at the Lycée Condorcet, where he succeeded La Provostaye who was forced to retire on account of ill-health.
- His growing reputation won for him in 1853 the chair of physics at the Sorbonne which he held for thirty-two years. Between 1858 and 1861 he made many observations in connexion with terrestrial magnetism.
- His most important contributions to physics, however, were his researches on radiant heat made in conjunction with La Provostaye.
- The two physicists concluded that radiant heat, like light, was a disturbance set up in what was then called the ether and propagated in all directions by transverse waves.
- They showed in a series of "MĂ©moires" published in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique that it manifests the characteristic phenomena of reflection, refraction, and polarization, as well as of emission and absorption.
- They also made a study of the latent heat of fusion of ice, and a careful investigation of the range of applicability of the Dulong-Petit law representing the law of cooling. He also worked in connexion with the establishment and development of laboratory instruction in physics.
- When the Ecole pratique des hautes Ă©tudes was founded in 1869 he was commissioned to organize the physical laboratory.
- During the Siege of Paris (1870–1871), he succeeded after many difficulties in establishing electrical communication with d'Alméida who was outside the lines.
- The exposure he underwent brought on rheumatism which greatly weakened his constitution.
- He died in Paris.
- Desains published a Traité de Physique (Paris, 1855) and numerous articles, chiefly with La Provostaye.
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