The French physicist Hippolyte Armand Louis Fizeau (1819-1896) is best remembered as the first to measure the speed of light without any recourse to astronomical observations.

Hippolyte Fizeau was born in Paris on Sept. 23, 1819, the son of a wealthy physician and professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Paris. Young Fizeau received his secondary education at the Collège Stanislas and first wanted to pursue a career in medicine, but because of poor health he had to discontinue regular attendance of classes. After a lengthy journey had restored him to health, he turned again to scientific studies. This time, however, he did not work for a degree, and instead of medicine he concentrated on physics.

It was mainly the experimental verification of theories that interested Fizeau, and he soon had a laboratory equipped for himself at home. His first achievement was an improvement on the daguerreotype process...