Éleuthère Mascart

Who was Éleuthère Mascart?

Éleuthère Élie Nicolas Mascart was a noted French physicist, a researcher in optics, electricity, magnetism, and meteorology.

Mascart was born in Quarouble, Nord. Starting in 1858, he attended the École normale supérieure, earning his agrégé-préparateur three years later. He acquired his doctoral degree in science in 1864. After serving at various posts in secondary education, in 1868 he moved to the Collège de France to become Régnault's assistant. Mascart was appointed to succeed Régnault as the tenured Régnault chair in 1872, which he held until his death. In 1878 he also became the first director of the Bureau Central Météorologique.

He won the Bordin Prize of the Académie française in 1866 and the Grand prix of the Académie des sciences in 1874.

He was elected Perpetual Member, Secretary, and in 1904 President, of the Académie des Sciences, and in 1892, Foreign Member of the British Royal Society. Mascart was elected vice president of the British Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1900, the first non-Briton to hold the post. He was also a grand officier of the Légion d'Honneur. Mascart founded Supélec in 1894.

Mascart's graduate student Henri Bénard carried out groundbreaking experiments in thermal convection, as part of his dissertation research, in Mascart's laboratory. Bénard's doctoral thesis was defended in 1901.