Jules Antoine Lissajous

Who was Jules Antoine Lissajous?

Jules Antoine Lissajous was a French mathematician, after whom Lissajous figures are named. Among other innovations, Lissajous invented the Lissajous apparatus, a device that creates the figures that bear his name. In it, a beam of light is bounced off a mirror attached to a vibrating tuning fork, and then reflected off a second mirror attached to a perpendicularly oriented vibrating tuning fork, onto a wall, resulting in a Lissajous figure. This led to the invention of other apparatus such as the harmonograph.