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By Paul Nadar – Wikimedia

Top 10 French inventors

France has some of the best culinary experience, wine, and fashion in the world. This is not all, the French have contributed greatly to innovation and technology. These inventions have gone a long way in changing lives not only in France but globally too.

The great men and women in France beat all odds to create that which was thought to be impossible. They created devices that have changed how people live. From the bicycle, mayonnaise, brassier, stethoscope, to mathematical formulas.

France’s culture of embracing innovation continues through annual contests where young inventors showcase their prototypes. The winners get to patent their inventions and launch it to the market.

Today we’ll look at the top 10 French inventors that contributed greatly in different fields.

1. René Laennec, The stethoscope (1816)

First on the list is doctor Rene Laennec who invented the stethoscope in 1816. He wanted to examine his patients without using invasive instruments. Rene was at the time working at Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital in Paris.

As was the norm back then, a doctor would place their ear on the patient’s chest to hear the internal sounds. He was not comfortable with this so he rolled up a piece of paper and placed it on the patient’s back.

He was pleased with the result and devised a gadget that allowed him to listen to the sound made by the heart. His first stethoscope was made of a small disc-shaped resonator that amplified the internal sounds. This helped in giving the right diagnosis to his patients.

Rene later published his findings on the use of the stethoscope in listening to body sounds, on mediate auscultation.

This invention made him the father of clinical auscultation. Through the use of the device, he was able to correctly diagnose bronchiectasis, cirrhosis and pulmonary conditions such as pneumonia, bronchiectasis, pleurisy, emphysema, pneumothorax, phthisis and other lung diseases from the patient’s internal sound.

2. Louis Pasteur, Pasteurization (1864)

By Paul Nadar – Wikimedia

Louis Pasteur was a French biologist, microbiologist and chemist famously known for several discoveries. He made great strides by contributing to principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation and pasteurization.

Louis contributed to discoveries that showed the causes and prevention of diseases. One of his greatest ever inventions was pasteurization. This invention was named after him.

Milk preservation was much needed and is a microbiologist, he figured out a process that killed bacteria in food, and drinks.  This gave the products a longer shelf life while being fresh and healthy.

The pasteurization process does not remove all the microorganisms in the food, unlike sterilization.

This process was not only reserved for milk and food but also to beer and wine. The process prevented the drinks from going sour.

Louis invention has greatly helped in the preservation of dairy and food in today’s industries. He also invented vaccines for anthrax and rabies.

3. Jacques Cousteau, Aqua-lungs (1943)

Jacques was a French naval officer, an explorer, a conservationist, filmmaker and so many other things. His passion was more on studying the sea and all forms of life in water.

Together with his colleagues, he led them in designing equipment that helped divers breathe underwater with a constant supply of oxygen. They named it aqualung; it was the first of its kind to be used in marine conservation.

He went ahead and published his research findings on the use of the aqualung in his book the silent world; a story of undersea discovery and adventure.

The aqualung tank is made up of a regulator with high-pressure tanks that supply oxygen to the diver.

4. Louis Braille, Braille (1824)

By Agence Rol – Wikipedia

Louis Braille was a blind French educator that lost sight in both his eyes at a young age. He studied at the National Institute for Blind Children in Paris then later to French Royal Institute for the Blind youth.

While studying he learnt about Charles Barbier night writing. He was an army officer that used a 12-dot system to communicate at night on the battlefield.

This inspired Louis to create his 6-dot system that enabled the visually impaired to read and write. He used raised dots on paper that could be felt paper.

The genius invention was named Braille and the first release was in 1829. A revision was later done in 1837 and the system has remained unchanged ever since.

Ever since its invention, the visually impaired members of the community have been able to lead a better life in their education and communication.

Louis never lived to see the success of his invention because it was fully embraced as a great invention long after he had died.

5. Nicéphore Niépce, Photography (1822)

Nicephore Niepce is another French inventor that is credited with creating the photographic process. He used Bitumen of Judea (asphalt) during his first photoresist in 1822.

He was the pioneer in photography and film processing in the 19^th century. Nicephore was the first man to ever take a photograph in 1826.

The photo was taken from the window at Le Gras and is the first-ever available photo depicting nature, although grainy it captured the world.

Nicephore did not stop at that, he improved his device further by working on his post-exposure processing.

He worked together with Louis Daguerre and together they were able to produce much better results. These photos were exposed for a few minutes, it was previously exposed for longer hours.

This invention was first presented to the world as the gift of France on August 19th 1839.

6. Jeanne Villepreux-Power, Aquarium (1832)

By Andr̩-Adolphe-Eug̬ne Disd̩ri РWikimedia

Inventors in France were not only made of men but also women. First great woman on this list is Jeanne Villepreux-Power who invented the glass aquarium.

She came up with this invention to be able to observe and examine marine life with ease.

As a marine biologist, she was passionate about the tiny organisms in the water. She wanted to be able to tell the difference between male and female fishes.

After her first aquarium, she created two more that were used on different occasions. The first design was made of glass that would be placed in a cage in shallow water.

The other aquarium was bigger and cage-like that would be placed in deeper contents.

She was called the mother of aquariophily by a British biologist, Richard Owen, who was impressed with her work.

7. Irène Joliot-Curie, Artificial Radioactivity (1935)

Another great French woman was Irene Joliot-Curie who invented artificial radioactivity. Her passion for science was inspired by her family.

She began her education at 10 years old. Her mother, Marie Curie, noticed that her daughter was very talented in mathematics.

She worked with other French scholars in establish an elite group of best in France. Together, they privately tutored their children in their respective homes.

The group focused on principles of science and scientific research, Chinese, sculpturing and self-expression. Most importantly play, lack of it made Jack a dull boy.

After her education, Irene embarked on understanding the action of neurons on heavy elements. She taught as a lecturer in the faculty of science in 1932 and later became a Director at the Radium Institute.

She worked as a commissioner for atomic energy for six years and during that period was part of the team that created to first French atomic pile in 1948. Together with Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Irène discovered artificial radioactivity. The Curies family is to date with the most Nobel laureates.

8. Marie Curie, Pioneer researcher in Radioactivity

Pierre and Marie Curie in the laboratory, By Wikimedia

Next is Marie Curie who was Irene Joliot Curie’s mother. She is said to be one of the most intelligent physicists and chemist to ever live. Marie was one of the pioneer women in science that broke the glass ceiling in a male-dominated field.

She was also the first woman to win the Nobel Prize twice, become a professor at a university and her tomb is at the Pantheon, the national mausoleum in France.

Her contribution to science has made great strides in understanding radioactivity. There has been tremendous progress in physics, chemistry, and the advancement of x-rays.

Marie started by investigating the magnetic properties of various steels. She also worked with her husband Pierre Curie to discover polonium and radium and development of the x-ray.

9. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, HIV (1983)

Francoise Barre Sinoussi was a French virologist, the director of the Regulation of Retroviral Infections Division and a Professor at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France.

She was the first scientist to identify the human immunodeficiency virus that was caused by AIDs. She worked closely with Luc Montagnier to understand the swelling of the lymph glands that attacked lymphocytes. This inflammation affected the immunity of the patients.

This discovery was made in the 1980s when AIDs was a pandemic and scientists could not understand the virus. Their discovery led to the improvement of treatment methods of AIDs patients.

10. Emilie du Châtelet, Kinetic energy (the 1730s)

By Maurice Quentin- Wikimedia

The last inventor on our list today is Emilie du Chatelet who was a French natural philosopher and mathematician. She is credited to having discovered kinetic energy after translating Isaac Newton’s work on laws of physics.

Her translation of the work was done in 1756 after her death. She greatly contributed to Newtonian mechanics in which kinetic energy of motion is an element. Emilie was able to stem the quantitative relationship of mass and velocity of an object.