Alfred-Marie Liénard was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 physicist

Physicist

A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...

 and engineer

Engineer

An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...

. He is most well known for his invention of the Liénard–Wiechert potentials.

From 1887–1889 Liénard was a student at the École Polytechnique

École Polytechnique

The École Polytechnique is a state-run institution of higher education and research in Palaiseau, Essonne, France, near Paris. Polytechnique is renowned for its four year undergraduate/graduate Master's program...

 and from 1889–1892 at the École des mines de Paris

École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris

The École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris was created in 1783 by King Louis XVI in order to train intelligent directors of mines. It is one of the most prominent French engineering schoolsThe École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris (also known as Mines ParisTech, École des Mines de...

. From 1892–1895 he was a mining engineer in Valencia, Marseille

Marseille

Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...

, and Angers

Angers

Angers is the main city in the Maine-et-Loire department in western France about south-west of Paris. Angers is located in the French region known by its pre-revolutionary, provincial name, Anjou, and its inhabitants are called Angevins....

. From 1895–1908 he was professor at the École des Mines de Saint-Étienne

École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne

The école nationale supérieure des mines de Saint-Étienne is one of the French generalist engineering schools Grandes Ecoles.The école nationale supérieure des mines of Saint Etienne is one of the French "Grandes Ecoles" dedicated to training highly qualified engineers and to carrying out research...

 and from 1908–1911 he was professor of electrical engineering at the École des Mines de Paris. In World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 he served in the French Army

French Army

The French Army, officially the Armée de Terre , is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces.As of 2010, the army employs 123,100 regulars, 18,350 part-time reservists and 7,700 Legionnaires. All soldiers are professionals, following the suspension of conscription, voted in...

.

Liénard worked in the fields of electricity

Electricity

Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...

, magnetism

Magnetism

Magnetism is a property of materials that respond at an atomic or subatomic level to an applied magnetic field. Ferromagnetism is the strongest and most familiar type of magnetism. It is responsible for the behavior of permanent magnets, which produce their own persistent magnetic fields, as well...

, and mechanics

Mechanics

Mechanics is the branch of physics concerned with the behavior of physical bodies when subjected to forces or displacements, and the subsequent effects of the bodies on their environment....

. In 1898 (and two years after him Emil Wiechert

Emil Wiechert

Emil Johann Wiechert was a German geophysicist who presented the first verifiable model of a layered structure of the Earth.-Life:...

), he derived what is now called the Liénard–Wiechert potentials. He also investigated problems related to the elasticity

Elasticity (physics)

In physics, elasticity is the physical property of a material that returns to its original shape after the stress that made it deform or distort is removed. The relative amount of deformation is called the strain....

 and strength of materials, and wrote papers on thermodynamics

Thermodynamics

Thermodynamics is a physical science that studies the effects on material bodies, and on radiation in regions of space, of transfer of heat and of work done on or by the bodies or radiation...

 and hydrodynamics.

Liénard was a commander of the Légion d'honneur

Légion d'honneur

The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...

. He was also vice-president of the Société Française des Électriciens and he was president of the Société Mathématique de France

Société Mathématique de France

The Société Mathématique de France is the main professional society of French mathematicians.The society was founded in 1872 by Émile Lemoine and is one of the oldest mathematical societies in existence...

.

External links

• Annales.org: Alfred-Marie Liénard