Fizeau–Foucault apparatus
Experimento de Fizeau y Foucault
- Date
- 1849 · confidence high
- Place
- Paris, France
- Credited to
- Léon Foucault y Hippolyte Fizeau
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What it is
An apparatus using a rotating toothed wheel, and later a rotating mirror, with which Hippolyte Fizeau and Léon Foucault made the first precise, absolute ground-based measurements of the speed of light in air.
What it led to
- first precise ground-based measurements of the speed of light
- demonstration that light travels slower in water than in air, supporting the wave theory
- later refinement of the method by Cornu and Michelson