Gaspard de Prony
Gaspard Clair François Marie Riche de Prony ( born July 22, 1755 in Chamelet ( Rhône), † July 29, 1839 in Asnières -sur -Seine ) was a French applied mathematician, hydraulics and hydraulic engineer.
Life
De Prony (the family was originally called Riche ) studied 1776 to 1779 at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1780 he worked under Jean -Rodolphe Perronet the construction of the Pont de Neuilly and helped this in 1785 with the renovation of the port of Dunkirk. He accompanied Perronet in the same year to England to determine the exact distance of the observatory of Greenwich to Paris. In 1783 he returned as an engineer back at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris. In the same year, his first article on the statics of arches, which brought him to the attention of Gaspard Monge appeared. In 1787 he was appointed to the École des Ponts et Chaussées inspector and was the construction of the Pont de la Concorde (then Louis XVI bridge ) involved in Paris, after which he was chief engineer in 1791 at the École des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1792 he began a long-standing project with Adrien Marie Legendre, Lazare Carnot and other mathematicians for the creation of trigonometric and logarithm tables, which became necessary by the introduction of the new metric system ( Prony was a member of the Commission for the introduction of the metric system ) The work were involved in some 80 assistants, lasted until 1801 and the panels were published in 1809 ( in part).
In 1794 he became professor of mathematics at the newly founded École Polytechnique ( which was led by Lazare Carnot and Monge ), in 1798, he returned as director of the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées. Mainly because he wanted to take up this post, he also refused to participate in the Egyptian expedition of Napoleon what these disgruntled ( remained worse consequences from but since de Prony 's wife was a friend of Josephine Bonaparte ). He was also a member of the Bureau des Longitudes. With the defeat of Napoleon in 1816, he lost his professorship at the École Polytechnique, but was shortly afterwards there again one of the examiners. He opposed in later years of his opinion to theoretical mathematical orientation of teaching under Augustin Louis Cauchy, but it was unsuccessful.
Several volumes of his lectures at the École Polytechnique and École des Ponts et Chaussées were published and were then widely used textbooks for French engineers.
He is immortalized in particular on the Eiffel Tower, see: The 72 names on the Eiffel Tower.
Writings
- Architecture hydraulique, 2 volumes, Paris, 1790, 1796
- Lecons de mecanique Analytique, Paris 1810