Jean-Antoine Nollet (1700-1770), French experimental physicist and clergyman. After studying theology Nollet was appointed head of a monastery and so is also known as Abbe Nollet. However, a love of science led him to become an assistant to the physicists Dufay and Reaumer, where he studied electricity. In 1740 he was admitted to the Paris Academy of Science. He later became the first professor of experimental physics at the University of Paris. In 1748 he invented the electrometer, a device for detecting and measuring electrical charges. He also developed a theory of electrical attraction and repulsion that supposed the existence of a continuous flow of electrical matter between charged bodies.