This is an I-Heart podcast.

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of IHeart Radio.

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry.

And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

Uh, hey, this is yet another instance of one episode tangentially inspiring another.

That happens a lot. It does.

Lately it happens a lot more than usual. I don't know why that is.

I first came into contact with Fresnel lenses in college.

But then, because I worked, you know, I have a theater degree, and they come up in lighting, which you had to do, even though I was largely working in acting, I did a lot of set stuff as well.

But then, while I was working on our

episode on TV remotes, Franel lenses came up again in relation to one of Eugene Polly's patents,

and that, of course, reminded me of him because Augustin Frenel is pretty interesting to me.

He did not live a long life, but in his relatively short life, he contributed significantly

both to the understanding of light and related to that to the safety of coastlines. But what I

love most about his story is that neither of those accomplishments had anything to do with his

chosen career.

Which we can talk about a little more on behind the scenes,

but we're going to talk about Augustin Franel today.

Augustin Jean-Frenel was born on May 10th, 1788, in Broly, France,

which sets roughly 75 miles or 120 kilometers west of Paris.

His mother was Augustine-Marie Mae, and his father was Jacques Franel, who was an architect. And Jacques was very successful. He took on projects like

restoring and expanding chateau for the aristocracy. After Augustine was born, the Franelel's move to Scherborg, which sits on the northern

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