Hippolyte Fontaine

Hippolyte Fontaine (born 1833, Dijon, France—died February 17, 1910, Paris) was a 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 École Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Métiers at Châlons-sur-Marne, he traveled 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 1870–71, he organized the manufacture of cannons. After discovering the reversibility of the dynamo, he constructed an electric motor based on that principle. He demonstrated the transmission of electricity at Vienne in 1873. While serving as president of the Société Internationale des Électriciens, he founded the Revue Industrielle, a learned journal.