Charles Bossut

Abbot Charles Bossut , French geometrician, member of the Academy of Science (elected in 1768), member corresponding as of the Academy of Berlin and Bologna, honorary member of the Academy of Saint Pétersbourg (1778), born in 1730, with Tartaras close to Bank-with-Gier, died the January 14th 1814

The academician

After studies with the college of the Jesuits of Lyon, it was devoted to the scientific research and collaborated in the Encyclopédie of Diderot and Alembert. It obtained early by its work the protection of Alexis Claude Clairaut, of Jean the Round of Alembert and of Charles Etienne Louis Camus, was, by the influence of this last, appointed professor with the royal École of the genius of Wall, then inspector of the pupils of the Genious (1786), which fixed it at Paris; this place with the French revolution lost, but was replaced under the Empire on the initiative of Gaspard Monge, its former student with Mézières.

A hydraulician

Its name is in particular attached to the experiments which it undertook, in the basins of the Military academy, with Nicolas de Condorcet and Jean the Round of Alembert, to determine resistance that water opposes to the movement ships (1775-1777).

Commission of the channels

With Condorcet and the Abbot Alexis Rochon, it formed a charged commission to then examine the projects of channels being studied, even in the course of execution. Thus, for example, the three men proposed, in 1786, to make small drain of floatation of the Bazois a true junction canal of the the Loire to the the Seine (by the Yonne), the future Canal of the Resident of Nevers, open in 1841. Curiously, he did not work on the channel which was built then with the foot of its native village, the Canal of Givors, open in 1780.

Its works

In addition to a great number of memories which were crowned by the Academy of Science, one owes him:

an edition of Blaise Pascal;
an elementary Treated of hydrodynamics (1771), altered later on in Treated theoretical and experimental of hydrodynamics in 2 volumes (1786-87), Paris;
an elementary treated of mechanic statics (1772), essential work for the preparation with the entrance examinations at the military academies of Old Mode, which was détrôné in the university edition only by the Élémens of statics of Louis Poinsot (1803).
a Course of mathematics , written in a simple and popular way which had much vogue (1781);
a general History of mathematics , 1810, 2 volumes in-8, which is its principal title.

Sources

Antoine Picon the invention of the modern engineer (1992), pr. of the School of the Bridges & Roadways, ISBN 2-85978-178-1
Andre Guillerme To build the city (1995), ED. Field Small valley, ISBN 2-87673-203-3

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