Gaspard Le Compasseur de Créqui-Montfort, Marquis de Courtivron

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Gaspard Le Compasseur de Créqui-Montfort, Marquis de Courtivron , (born February 28, 1715 at Courtivron Castle , † October 5, 1785 ibid) was a French nobleman, officer and scientist.

Courtivron joined the regiment of his maternal uncle, Marshal of Clermont-Tonnerre (1688–1781), who was General Commissioner of the Cavalry , at the age of 15 . Courtivron received a company at the age of 16 and took part in campaigns in the controversy for the succession to the Polish throne such as the siege of Philippsburg. At the end of the war in 1735 he decided to study natural sciences until his next military deployment. Initially this was intended to serve his further military career, but he soon became interested in the natural sciences as an end in itself. His teacher in Paris was Alexis Claude Clairaut . In the Austrian War of Succession he served as an officer again from 1741. He was responsible for replenishing the cavalry under Marshal de Broglie and was wounded at Schloss Frauenberg, which is why he left the military in 1743. When he left, he became a Knight of St. Louis and Colonel. Then he devoted himself to the natural sciences.

In 1744 he became a member of the Académie des Sciences . In 1765 he retired to his castle.

He published a treatise on mechanics, in which he also anticipated ideas about energy conservation. Courtivron followed up on d'Alembert and postulated an equilibrium of a moving system of rigid bodies at the maximum of kinetic energy (vis viva). One consequence of his theory was the equality of changes in kinetic energy and work. Émile Jouguet cites him as an example of the development of the principle of virtual work (like Maupertuis ' Loi de repos ) and Leibniz's idea of ​​vis viva in the 18th century.

In 1752 his Traité d'optique appeared , in which he advocated Newton's corpuscle theory of light and traced colors back to different corpuscle speeds and also used Fermat's principle . However, he also included translations of Robert Smith's Compleat System of Optics that ran counter to his own theory.

Treatises from 1745 and 1748 concerned the spread of cattle diseases in Bourgogne, which were brought in from Germany with captured cattle.

In 1762 a treatise by him and Étienne Jean Boucher (Bouchu) appeared on iron foundries and forges ( Art des forges et des fourneaux à fer ). It also contained a translation of Emanuel Swedenborg's treatise on iron ores and used the phlogiston theory.

In 1744 he published a paper on solving algebraic equations.

literature

  • Robert M. McKeon: Courtivron, Gaspard Le Compasseur de Créqui-Montfort, Marquis de , in Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  • Nicolas de Condorcet : Éloge de M. Monsieur le marquis de Courtivron , in: Histoire de l'Académie royale des sciences - Année 1785, Imprimerie royale, Paris, 1788, pp. 130-136, Gallica

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Recherches de statique et de dynamique, ou l'on donne un nouveau principe general pour la consideration des corps animes par des forces variables, suivant une loin quelconque, Mémoires Acad. 1749 (published 1753)
  2. ^ McKeon, Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  3. ↑ Jouguet, Lectures de mécanique, Volume 1, Paris 1908, pp. 75, 197/198
  4. ^ Traité d'optique, Google Books
  5. ^ Art des forges et des fourneaux à fer , Gallica
  6. ↑ German translation treatise of the iron hammers and high ovens , scene of the arts and crafts, from 1762 (Descriptions des Arts et Métiers), wikisource
personal data
SURNAME Courtivron, Gaspard Le Compasseur de Créqui-Montfort Marquis de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French nobleman, officer and scientist
DATE OF BIRTH February 28, 1715
PLACE OF BIRTH Courtivron
DATE OF DEATH October 5, 1785
Place of death Courtivron