Léon Foucault Catholicism that he previously abandoned. Foucault died of what was probably a rapidly developing case of multiple sclerosis on 11 February 1868 in Paris and was buried in the Montmartre Cemetery. The asteroid 5668 Foucault was named for him. His is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower. Collected Works: Léon Foucault Jean Bernard Léon Foucault (; 18 September 1819 – 11 February 1868) was a French physicist best known for his demonstration of the Foucault pendulum, a device demonstrating the effect of the Earth's rotation. He also made an early measurement of the speed of light,
History of physics paper on the conservation of energy but his lack of academic training led to its rejection. In 1842, Christian Doppler proposed the Doppler effect. In 1847, Hermann von Helmholtz formally stated the law of conservation of energy. In 1851, Léon Foucault showed the Earth's rotation with a huge pendulum (Foucault pendulum). There were important advances in continuum mechanics in the first half of the century, namely formulation of laws of elasticity for solids and discovery of Navier–Stokes equations for fluids. In the 19th century, the connection between heat and mechanical energy was established quantitatively by Julius Robert von Mayer and