PHYSICIST

Léon Foucault

1819 - 1868

Photo of Léon Foucault

Icon of person Léon Foucault

Jean Bernard Léon Foucault (UK: , US: ; French: [ʒɑ̃ bɛʁnaʁ leɔ̃ fuko]; 18 September 1819 – 11 February 1868) was a French physicist best known for his demonstration of the Foucault pendulum, a device demonstrating the effect of Earth's rotation. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Léon Foucault has received more than 395,959 page views. His biography is available in 70 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 68 in 2019). Léon Foucault is the 48th most popular physicist (down from 37th in 2019), the 224th most popular biography from France (down from 204th in 2019) and the 7th most popular French Physicist.

Léon Foucault is most famous for his pendulum experiment. He used a pendulum to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth.

Memorability Metrics

  • 400k

    Page Views (PV)

  • 73.03

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 70

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 14.64

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 2.76

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Page views of Léon Foucaults by language

Over the past year Léon Foucault has had the most page views in the with 52,633 views, followed by Spanish (19,556), and French (15,952). In terms of yearly growth of page views the top 3 wikpedia editions are Mingrelian (599.21%), Bulgarian (96.79%), and Ido (90.56%)

Among PHYSICISTS

Among physicists, Léon Foucault ranks 48 out of 851Before him are Max von Laue, Pieter Zeeman, J. J. Thomson, Philipp Lenard, William Gilbert, and Frédéric Joliot-Curie. After him are Christian Doppler, Barry Barish, William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, Johannes Diderik van der Waals, Wilhelm Wien, and Ernst Mach.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1819, Léon Foucault ranks 5Before him are Queen Victoria, Gustave Courbet, Jacques Offenbach, and Clara Schumann. After him are Herman Melville, Albert, Prince Consort, Walt Whitman, Sir George Stokes, 1st Baronet, Báb, Hippolyte Fizeau, and Maria II of Portugal. Among people deceased in 1868, Léon Foucault ranks 2Before him is Gioachino Rossini. After him are James Buchanan, August Ferdinand Möbius, Ludwig I of Bavaria, Mongkut, August Schleicher, Alexandre Colonna-Walewski, Okita Sōji, William T. G. Morton, Mihailo Obrenović, and David Brewster.

Others Born in 1819

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Others Deceased in 1868

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In France

Among people born in France, Léon Foucault ranks 224 out of 6,770Before him are Gilles Deleuze (1925), Pope Innocent VI (1282), Gustave Le Bon (1841), Hortense de Beauharnais (1783), Frédéric Joliot-Curie (1900), and Gustave Doré (1832). After him are Bernard Arnault (1949), François Boucher (1703), Pope Urban VI (1318), Philip V of France (1293), Christian Dior (1905), and Antoine Meillet (1866).

Among PHYSICISTS In France

Among physicists born in France, Léon Foucault ranks 7Before him are Pierre Curie (1859), Henri Becquerel (1852), André-Marie Ampère (1775), Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (1736), Henry Cavendish (1731), and Frédéric Joliot-Curie (1900). After him are Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis (1792), Louis de Broglie (1892), Hans Bethe (1906), Jean Baptiste Perrin (1870), François Arago (1786), and Alfred Kastler (1902).