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The French engineer, chemist, and inventor Georges Claude (September 24, 1870 – May 23, 1960), was the first to apply an electrical discharge to a sealed tube of neon gas (circa 1902) to create a lamp. Inspired in part by Daniel McFarlan Moore's invention, Moore's Lamp, Paris-born Claude invented the neon lamp by passing an electric current through inert gases, making them glow very brightly.
In 1902 Georges Claude and businessman Paul Delorme founded L'Air Liquide S.A. (Air Liquide) based on a method to liquify air that enabled large scale production of oxygen. Air Liquide presently exists as a large multinational corporation headquartered in Paris, France.
In 1923, Georges Claude and his French company Claude Neon, introduced neon gas signs to the United States, by selling two to a Packard car dealership in Los Angeles. Earle C. Anthony purchased the two signs reading "Packard" for $1,250 apiece. Neon lighting quickly became a popular fixture in outdoor advertising. Visible even in daylight, people would stop and stare at the first neon signs for hours, dubbed "liquid fire."
Being a student of Jacques-Arsène d'Arsonval, the inventor of the OTEC concept, Claude was also the first person to build prototype plants of that technology. Claude built his plant in Cuba in 1930. The system produced 22 kilowatts of electricity with a low-pressure turbine.[1]
In 1935, Claude constructed another plant, this time aboard a 10,000-ton cargo vessel moored off the coast of Brazil. Weather and waves destroyed both plants before they could become net power generators.[1] (Net power is the amount of power generated after subtracting power needed to run the system.)
Georges Claude was also an accomplished artist painting many watercolour pictures some when on holiday in the Pyrenees (1909) in the Valli's De Lac hon.
Claude was honored for chemical work in World War I but stripped of his honors and sentenced to life in prison in June 1945 for collaboration with the Nazis. Claude was convicted of propaganda work favoring collaboration, but was cleared of another charge that he helped design the V-1 rocket. In 1950 Claude was released from jail, at the age of 79. ("Georges Claude, Inventor, Dies; Creator of Neon Light was 89," New York Times, May 24, 1960, p.37)
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