French physicists

Pierre Aigrain (28 September 1924 – 30 October 2002) was a French physicist and Secretary of Research in the French Academy of Sciences.

Auguste Bravais (French pronunciation: [oɡyst bʁavɛ]; 23 August 1811, Annonay, Ardèche – 30 March 1863, Le Chesnay, France) was a French physicist known for his work in crystallography, the conception of Bravais lattices, and the formulation of Bravais law. Bravais also studied magnetism, the northern lights, meteorology, geobotany, phyllotaxis, astronomy, statistics and hydrography.
He studied at the Collège Stanislas in Paris before joining the École Polytechnique in 1829, where he was a classmate of groundbreaking mathematician Évariste Galois, whom Bravais actually beat in a scholastic mathematics competition. Towards the end of his studies he became a naval officer, and sailed on the Finistere in 1832 as well as the Loiret afterwards. He took part in hydrographic work along the Algerian Coast. He participated in the Recherche expedition and helped the Lilloise in Spitzbergen and Lapland.
Bravais taught a course in applied mathematics for astronomy in the Faculty of Sciences in Lyon, starting in 1840. He succeeded Victor Le Chevalier in the Chair of Physics at the Ecole Polytechnique from 1845 until 1856 when he was replaced by Henri Hureau de Sénarmont. In 1844 he published a paper on the statistical concept of correlation, and arrived at a definition of the correlation coefficient before Karl Pearson. He is, however, best remembered for his work on Bravais lattices, particularly his 1848 discovery that there are 14 unique lattices in three-dimensional crystalline systems, correcting the previous scheme, with 15 lattices, conceived by Frankenheim three years before.
Bravais published a memoir about crystallography in 1847. A co-founder of the Société météorologique de France, he joined the French Academy of Sciences in 1854. Bravais also worked on the theory of observational errors, a field in which he is especially known for his 1846 paper "Mathematical analysis on the probability of errors of a point".
The mountain Bravaisberget, in Svalbard, is named after Bravais.

Benoît Paul Émile Clapeyron (French: [klapɛʁɔ̃]; 26 January 1799 – 28 January 1864) was a French engineer and physicist, one of the founders of thermodynamics.

Roger Balian (born 18 January 1933) is a French-Armenian physicist who has worked on quantum field theory, quantum thermodynamics, and theory of measurement.
Balian is a member of French Académie des sciences (Academy of Sciences). His important work includes the Balian-Low theorem. He teaches statistical physics at the École Polytechnique.

Pierre Victor Auger (French pronunciation: [oʒe]; 14 May 1899 – 24 December 1993) was a French physicist, born in Paris. He worked in the fields of atomic physics, nuclear physics, and cosmic ray physics. He is famous for being one of the discoverers of the Auger effect, named after him.

Louis-Paul Cailletet (21 September 1832 – 5 January 1913) was a French physicist and inventor.

Louis Leprince-Ringuet (27 March 1901, in Alès – 23 December 2000, in Paris) was a French physicist, telecommunications engineer, essayist and historian of science.Leprince-Ringuet advocated strongly for the creation of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and remained its indefatigable supporter. He was vice chair (1956–69) and chair (1964–66) of CERN’s scientific policy committee. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society.He is known for early discovery of the kaon. He also coined the term hyperon in 1953.

Maurice Paul Auguste Charles Fabry (French: [fabʁi]; 11 June 1867 – 11 December 1945) was a French physicist working on optics. Together with Alfred Pérot he invented the Fabry–Pérot interferometer. He is also one of the co-discoverers of the ozone layer.

Maurice de Broglie, 6th Duke of Broglie (27 April 1875 – 14 July 1960) was a French physicist. His younger brother was the theoretical physicist Louis de Broglie.

André-Eugène Blondel (28 August 1863 – 15 November 1938) was a French engineer and physicist. He is the inventor of the electromechanical oscillograph and a system of photometric units of measurement.