Charles François de Cisternay du Fay


Charles François de Cisternay du Fay was a French chemist and superintendent of the Jardin du Roi.
He discovered the existence of two types of electricity and named them "vitreous" and "resinous". He noted the difference between conductors and insulators, calling them 'electrics' and 'non-electrics' for their ability to produce contact electrification. He also discovered that alike-charged objects would repel each other and that unlike-charged objects attract. He also disproved certain misconceptions regarding electric charge, such as that of Dr. Stephen Gray who believed that electric properties of a body depended on its colour. Du Fay's observations on electricity were reported in a paper written in December 1733 and printed in Volume 38 of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1734. He became a member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1723.
Du Fay died of smallpox in 1739.

Publications

All Du Fay's publications appeared in the journal Histoire de l'Académie Royale des Sciences: avec les mémoires de mathématique & de physique pour les mêmes années