Zénobe Gramme

Who was Zénobe Gramme?

Zénobe Théophile Gramme was a Belgian electrical engineer. He invented the Gramme machine, a type of direct current dynamo capable of generating smoother and much higher voltages than the dynamos known to that point.

In 1873 he and Hippolyte Fontaine accidentally discovered that the device was reversible and would spin when connected to any DC power supply. The Gramme machine was the first usefully powerful electrical motor that was successful industrially. Before Gramme's inventions, electric motors attained only low power and were mainly used as toys or laboratory curiosities.

Gramme died at Bois-Colombes, France and was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery.

In the city of Liège there is a High School, L'Institut Gramme, named after him.

In 2005 he ended at 23rd place in the election of Le plus grand Belge, the television show broadcast by the French-speaking RTBF and based on the BBC show 100 Greatest Britons.