Home > Pierre Bouguer

His father, John Bouguer, one of the best hydrographers of his time, was regius professor of hydrography at Croisic in lower Brittany, and author of a treatise on navigation. In 1713 he was appointed to succeed his father as professor of hydrography. In 1727 he gained the prize given by the French Academy of Sciences for his paper On the best manner of forming and distributing the masts of ships ; and two other prizes, one for his dissertation On the best method of observing the altitude of stars at sea, the other for his paper On the best method of observing the variation of the compass at sea. These were published in the Prix de l’Academie des Sciences.

In 1729 he published Essai d'optique sur la gradation de la lumière, the object of which is to define the quantity of light lost by passing through a given extent of the atmosphere. He found the light of the sun to be 300 times more intense than that of the moon, and thus made some of the earliest measurements in photometry. In 1730 he was made professor of hydrography at Havre, and succeeded Pierre Louis MaupertuisPierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis ( July 17, 1698 July 27, 1759) was a French mathematician and astronomer. He is often credited with having invented the principle of least action. He was born at Saint-Malo, France. At the age of twenty he entered the arm as associate geometer of the Academy of Sciences. He also invented a heliometer , afterwards perfected by Joseph von FraunhoferJoseph von Fraunhofer ( March 6, 1787 June 7, 1826) was a German physicist. When Fraunhofer became an orphan at the age of 11, he started working at a company for optical instruments. In 1801 the workshop in which he was working collapsed and he was burie. He was afterwards promoted in the Academy to the place of Maupertuis, and went to reside in ParisEiffel Tower has become the symbol of Paris throughout the world. Paris is the capital and largest city of France. The city is built on an arc of the River Seine, and is thus divided into two parts: the Right Bank to the north and the smaller Left Bank to.

In 1735 Bouguer sailed with Charles Marie de La CondamineCharles Marie de La Condamine ( January 28, 1701 February 4, 1774) was a French geographer and mathematician. La Condamine was born in Paris. He was trained for the military profession, but turned his attention to science and geographical exploration. for PeruFor other uses, see Peru (disambiguation The Republic of Per ( Spanish: Per Quechua, Aymara: Piruw is a country in western South America, bordering with Ecuador and Colombia to the north, Brazil to the east, Bolivia to the east, south-east and south, Chil, in order to measure a degree of the meridianMeridian is: Meridian (astronomy): an imaginary circle perpendicular to the horizon. Meridian (geography): either half or a full great circle that connects the Earth's poles. Meridian (TCM): an important concept in traditional Chinese medicine. The name o near the equatorIn geography, the equator is an imaginary line drawn around a planet, halfway between the poles, where the surface of the roughly spherical planet is parallel to the axis of rotation. The equator divides the surface into the Northern Hemisphere and the So. Ten years were spent in this operation, a full account of which was published by Bouguer in 1749, Figure de la terre determine. His later writings were nearly all upon the theory of navigation.

A craterThis article is about impact craters. For volcanic craters, see Caldera. For the constellation, see Crater (constellation). A crater basin or impact crater is a circular depression on the surface of a planet, moon, asteroid, or other celestial body. Crate on Mars was named in his honor.

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. 1911 Britannica