Background
Jules Jamin was the son of Antoine-Pierre Jamin, colonel of the dragoons.
physicist university professor
Jules Jamin was the son of Antoine-Pierre Jamin, colonel of the dragoons.
In 1841, he graduated first in the competition of comprehensive physical sciences.
He was professor of physics at École Polytechnique from 1852 to 1881 and received the Rumford Medal in 1858 for his work on light. He improved Brewster"s inclined interference plates with the development of the Jamin interferometer. He obtained his first position at the college of Caen, where he succeeded Paul Desains.
After two years, he joined the College Bourbon (today"s lycée Condorcet) as a substitute teacher, then in 1844, he joined the College Louis-le-Grand as a teacher.
While in Caen, he begun research in support of his thesis on the reflection of light on the surface of metals, for which in 1847 he received a doctorate in Physics. In 1852 he was appointed professor of physics at the École Polytechnique, a position he held until March 1881, when Alfred Potier succeeded him.
Based on his lectures at the École Polytechnique, he published a compelling paper titles "General essay on Physics". In 1868, he joined the French Academy of Sciences and in the same year he created and headed the Physical Research Laboratory funded by the École pratique des hautes études of which he was also the principal of the studies division.
In 1882, with arrival of a new generation of physicists who came to do research for their doctorates, such as Gabriel Lippmann, Henry Pellat and Anatole Leduc, he replaced Henri Milne Edwards as Dean of the Faculty with Edmond Bouty becoming the deputy director of the laboratory.
In the same year, he presided over the Academy of Sciences and became permanent secretary in 1884 succeeding Jean-Baptiste Dumas. His work encompassed the subjects of magnetism, electricity, humidity, and capillary action. In his work with optics, he discovered the elliptical polarization of light reflected from glassy substances in the vicinity of the angle of polarization, as predicted by Augustin-Louis Cauchy.
His name is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower.
French Academy of Sciences. Russian Academy of Sciences.