Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau

Joseph Plateau Family and Personal Life : On August 27, 1840, Plateau married Augustine – Thérèse – Aimée – Fanny Clavareau: they had a son a year later.  His daughter Alice Plateau married Gustaaf Van der Mensbrugghe in 1871, who became his collaborator and later his first biographer.  After studying law, Joseph Plateau became one of the best-known Belgian scientists of the 19th century, remembered for his study of physiological optics, particularly the effect of light and color on the human retina.

Joseph Plateau's father was an artistic man with a great talent for painting flowers. He wanted Joseph to follow an artistic career and his schooling was arranged with this aim. After excelling at primary school, Joseph was sent to the Academy of Fine Arts. However Joseph became an orphan at the age of fourteen when his father died, his mother having died one year earlier. A brother of Joseph's mother who was a lawyer, a M Thirion, took over bringing up Joseph and his two sisters. Joseph had a serious illness around this time and for a while could not attend the Academy. However, once he had recovered he resumed his course. Although the training at the Academy was mainly in the arts, Plateau's interests were in science. He was enthusiastic about physics and carried out experiments in the evenings with apparatus which he had constructed himself. These were not simply for his own amusement, for the young Plateau was putting on a show to entertain an audience. In this he co...