Gaspard de Prony
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Gaspard Clair François Marie Riche de Prony (July 22, 1755 - July 29, 1839) was a French mathematician and engineer, who worked on hydraulics. He was born at Chamelet, Beaujolais, France.
He was Engineer-in-Chief of the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées.
In 1792, de Prony began a major task of producing logarithmic and trigonometric tables, the Cadastre. The tables and their production were vast, with values calculated to between fourteen and twenty-nine decimal places.
Getting such a massive work published proved to be difficult and in fact the tables were never published in full and it was near the end of the century before even a part appeared.
One of de Prony's important scientific inventions was the 'de Prony brake' which he invented in 1821 to measure the performance of machines and engines.
See also: Prony equation.
[edit] External link
- O'Connor, John J., and Edmund F. Robertson. "Gaspard de Prony". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.
