FONTAINE, HIPPOLYTE

born 1833, Dijon, Fr. died 1917, Paris French engineer who discovered that a dynamo can be operated in reverse as an electric motor; he was also the first to transmit electric energy (1873). After completing his education at the cole Nationale Suprieure des Arts et Mtiers at Chlons-sur-Marne, he travelled around France making models of new inventions. He then became an industrial designer and by 1857 had become chief of design in a factory. During the Franco-German War of 187071, he organized the manufacture of cannons. After discovering the reversibility of the dynamo, he constructed an electric motor based on that principle, then used the motor in the first transmission of electricity at Vienne in 1873. While serving as president of the Socit Internationale des lectriciens, he founded the Revue Industrielle, a learned journal.