Historical biography archive · Updated 2026-11-03

Hippolyte Fizeau Biography and Timeline

Follow Hippolyte Fizeau through 1 dated historical records for France.

Hippolyte Fizeau, historical timeline

A chronological timeline drawn from matching World History Database records.

1Distinct records
1 of 1Page
1849–1849Years on this page

1849

Speed of Light

Science / Astronomy

The first successful entirely earthbound measurement of the speed of light is carried out by Hippolyte Fizeau, measuring the speed of light in air, which is slower than the speed of light in vacuum by a factor of the refractive index of air 1.0003

Records, sources and methodology

These dates and descriptions come from the historical_events database. Exact duplicate records have been collapsed. Names are grouped by the country, Name 2 and Name 1 fields; records with missing Name 2 cannot be reliably assigned to an individual biography. Check the underlying sources before formal citation.