DELAMBRE, JEAN BAPTISTE JOSEPH (1749-1822)

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DELAMBRE, JEAN BAPTISTE JOSEPH (1749-1822) , French astronomer, was born at Amiens on the 19th of September 1749. His college course, begun at Amiens under the abbe Jacques

Delille

DELILLE, JACQUES (1738–1813)

, was finished in Paris, where he took a scholarship at the college of Plessis. Despite extreme penury, he then continued to study indefatigably ancient and modern languages, history and literature, finally turning his attention to mathematics and astronomy. In 1771 he became tutor to the son of
M. d'Assy, receiver-general of finances; and while acting in this capacity, attended the lectures of J. J. Lalande, who, struck with his remarkable acquirements, induced M. d'Assy in 1788 to install an

observatory

OBSERVATORY

for his benefit at his own residence. Here

Delambre

DELAMBRE, JEAN BAPTISTE JOSEPH (1749-1822)

observed and computed almost uninterruptedly, and in 1790 obtained for his Tables of Uranus the prize offered by the

academy

ACADEMY, GREEK
ACADEMY, ROYAL

of sciences, of which

body

BODY

he was elected a member- two years later. He was admitted to the Institute on its organization in 1795, and became, in 1803, perpetual secretary to its mathematical section. He, moreover, belonged from 1795 to the bureau of longitudes. From 1792 to 1799 he was occupied with the measurement of the arc of the meridian extending from Dunkirk to

Barcelona

BARCELONA

, and published a detailed account of the operations in Base du systeme metrique (3 vols., 18o6, 1807, 181o), for which he was awarded in 1810 the decennial prize of the Institute. The first

consul

nominated him inspector-general of studies; he succeeded Lalande in 1807 as professor of astronomy at the College de France, and filled the office of treasurer to the imperial university from 18o8 until its suppression in 1815.

Delambre

DELAMBRE, JEAN BAPTISTE JOSEPH (1749-1822)

died at Paris on the 19th of August 1822. His last years were devoted to researches into the history of science, resulting in the successive publication of: Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne (2 vols., 1817); Histoire de l'astronomie an moyen dge (1819); Histoire de l'astronomie moderne (2 vols., 1821); and Histoire de l'astronomie an X VIII' siecle, issued in 1827 under the care of C. L. Mathieu. These books show marvellous erudition; but some of the judgments expressed in them are warped by prejudice; they are diffuse in style and overloaded with
computations. He wrote besides: Tables ecliptiques des satellites de Jupiter, inserted in the third edition of J. J. Lalande's Astronomie (1792), and republished in an improved form by the bureau of longitudes in 1817; Methodes analytiques pour la determination d'un arc du meridien (1799); Tables du soleil (publiees par le bureau des longitudes) (1806) ; Rapport historique sur les progres des sciences mat hematiques depuis l' an 1789 (1810); Abrege d'astronomie (1813); Astronomie theorique et pratique (1814); &c.
See J. B. J.

Fourier

's " Eloge " in Memoires de l'acad. des sciences, t. iv.; Ch. Dupin, Revue encyclopedique, t. xvi. (1822); Biog. universelle, t. lxii. (C. L. Mathieu) ; Max. Marie, Hist. des sciences, x. 31; R. Grant, Hist. of Physical Astr. pp. 96, 142, 165; R . Wolf, Geschichte der Astronomie, p. 779, &e. (A. M. C.)

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