Birthday of Jonas Ferdinand Gabriel Lippmann | Pioneer of colour photography | Techday, August 16th
On this TECHDAY in history, on August 16th 1845, a pioneer of colour photography was born in Luxemburg. He was Jonas Ferdinand Gabriel Lippmann an inventor and physicist. He won a Nobel prize in physics, for developing a process that reproduced colours in photographs.
It was based on the phenomenon of interference and it helped create the world’s first, colour photographic plate. The Lippmann plate, also known as the interference plate, is a photographic plate, coated with a thin layer of transparent material, such as oil or jelly, that is sensitive to light. When light strikes the plate, it creates an interference pattern that can be used to reproduce colors photographically. Lippmann received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1908 for his work on the Lippmann plate.
His other inventions include a device that provides precise measurements of electrical power, and the ‘coleostat’, a device for capturing long-exposure sky photographs.
Lippmann’s invention of the Lippmann plate and his pioneering work in the field of color photography had a significant impact on the development of photography and the motion picture industry. His work also influenced the development of other fields, such as holography and optical data storage. Lippmann died on July 13, 1921 in Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, France.
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Author: PC-GR
The World of Technology
