The credit for the development of centrifugation is often given to the French scientist Antoine César Becquerel, who first described the use of centrifugal force to separate substances in 1827. However, the first practical application of centrifugation was developed by the English chemist and industrialist James Small, who used a spinning motion to separate cream from milk in the early 19th century. The modern centrifuge, which uses a spinning rotor to generate centrifugal force, was developed in the early 20th century by the German chemist and inventor Theodor Svedberg. Svedberg's work laid the foundation for the development of many different types of centrifuges, which are now widely used in a variety of fields including biology, chemistry, and medicine.