Claude Pouillet (1790-1868), French physicist. Pouillet was a professor at the Conservatoire national des arts et metiers from 1829 to 1849. He was elected to the French Academy of Sciences in 1837. Named for him is the Pouillet effect, where the wetting of dry sand produces heat. Pouillet also worked on optics, electricity, magnetism, meteorology, photography and photometry. His major work was the four-volume textbook 'Elements de physique experimentale et de meteorologie' (1827). Artwork published in 1867.