Marc-Auguste Pictet

Marc- Auguste Pictet (* July 23, 1752 in Geneva, † April 19, 1825 in Geneva) was a Swiss scientist.

He became a student and traveling companion Horace - Bénédict de Saussure, whom he succeeded in 1786 as professor and later as President of the Academy of Geneva. In 1796 he founded with his brother, the diplomat Charles Pictet de Rochemont, and Frédéric -Guillaume Maurice ( 1750-1826 ), the Bibliothèque britannique ( universal since 1816 Bibliothèque ), which was aimed at dissemination of all made ​​in England important discoveries and come out works.

In the interests of his native town he was negotiating with the French Republic in 1798 and obtained for Geneva religion as well as their own management of public institutions concerned, the inherited common property. In 1802 he became a member of the tribunate, 1803 Secretary of the Authority, in 1807 one of the 15 Inspectors General of Public Instruction. After the Restoration he devoted himself exclusively to the sciences, including the study of meteorology, in whose interests he founded an observatory on the Great St. Bernard.

Pictet in 1808 became a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences.

The lunar crater Pictet is named after him.