High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Georges Claude (September 24, 1870 – May 23, 1960) was a French engineer and inventor. He is noted for his early work on the industrial liquefaction of air, for the invention and commercialization of neon lighting, and for a large experiment on generating energy by pumping cold seawater up from the depths. Considered by some to be "the Edison of France", he was an active collaborator with the German occupiers of France during the Second World War (1939-1945), for which he was imprisoned in 1945 and stripped of his honors.