225 years contributing to technological inventions

Numerous inventions, many of them still indispensable, have been developed by Polytechniciens. In materials, for example, cement was invented by Louis Vicat and viscose, an ever-present material in the textile industry, by Hilaire de Chardonnet. Eugène Freyssinet developed the first pre-stressed concrete. In mechanical engineering, Jean-Victor Poncelet worked on developing new models of water wheels, mill wheels and turbines. In railways, Paulin Talabot was one of the pioneers who developed the railways in France, and Eugène Verlant developed the code still used for railway signaling. In aviation, modernized versions of François Hussenot's black box and Raoul Badin's anemometer still equip aircraft, Pierre Satre designed the Caravelle airliner, a symbol of French aeronautical know-how, and Henri Ziegler relaunched the Airbus A300 project and was responsible for the Concorde, the first supersonic commercial aircraft in history, whose first test flights were piloted by André Turcat, another Polytechnique alumnus. In the armaments sector, Jacques Jacquesson participated in the development of the first French atomic bomb. As for the internet, it would probably never have existed without Louis Pouzin, who operated the first French computer network.