Lippmann, Gabriel (1845-1921), a French physicist, discovered a method of taking color photographs with ordinary black-and-white film. For this development, he was awarded the 1908 Nobel Prize in physics.
Lippmann was born in Luxembourg. His parents were French, and he was brought up and educated in Paris. He became a professor of mathematical physics at the Paris Faculty of Science and later directed the laboratory there which was incorporated into the Sorbonne, the University of Paris.
During the 1880’s, Lippmann worked out a theoretical method for recording colored images in ordinary photographic film. The method depended on the light waves interfering with each other in the emulsion, or light-sensitive, coating. By 1891, Lippmann had been partly successful in producing color photographs. But within two years, Auguste and Louis Lumière, two brothers best known as pioneers of motion pictures, used the method to produce color photographs.
The method that Lippmann pioneered was later replaced by techniques of color photography that use different layers of film, combined with color filters, to record different colors. These photographic methods are still in use today.
Lippmann’s research included work to improve the accuracy of the scientific measurement of electrical currents. He also developed a device, called a coelostat, that stopped the movement of telescope images of stars, so that the images could be photographed. Lippman died while returning by sea from North America, which he had visited as a scientific member of an official mission.
