Johann Wilhelm Wallot

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Johann Wilhelm Wallot (also Jean Guillaume ) (* 1743 in Oppenheim , † July 27, 1794 in Paris ) was a Franco-German astronomer.

In 1768 he accompanied Jean Dominique de Cassini on a sea voyage to Newfoundland and Sallee to test nautical clocks. Cassini, in his report on the trip from 1770, characterized him as “a lively and inventive young German, whose love of science had brought him to France, and whose turn to astronomy had determined him to accompany me on the journey and to come to me assist ".

In 1773, as a respected mathematician and astronomer in Paris, he became an extraordinary member of the Electoral Palatinate Academy of Sciences . From 1772 he was a corresponding member of the Académie royale des sciences .

He took over the position of an observer at the private observatory of Count Mercy d'Argenteau , who lived in the Palais du Luxembourg .

His solstitial observations made on a gnomon (shadow pointer ) in 1769 to determine the variability of the ecliptic skew were interesting . According to Jérôme Lalande, however, the method still contained too many sources of error.

On November 12, 1782, he observed the passage of Mercury through the solar disk . Like Herschel, he determined the apparent diameter of Mercury to be 9 ".

He died on the guillotine , one of the last victims of the French reign of terror , the day before Robespierre's execution .

Fonts

Articles in the Acta Academiae Theodoro-Palatinae :

  • Méthode directe de démeler par la comparaison des observations solsticiales faites à un gnomon, l'effet de la variation de l'obliquité de l'Ecliptique d'avec celui d'un dérangement supposé dans le stile du même gnomon. (How one can decide, by comparing solstitial observations made with a gnomon, whether they indicate a changed inclination of the ecliptic or a change in the state of the gnomon.) Vol. 3 Phys., Mannheim 1775, p. 319
  • Observations du passage de Mercure sur le disque du Soleil on November 12, 1782, faites à l'observatoire Royal. Vol. 5 Phys., Mannheim 1784, p. 201
  • Observations du mouvement d'oscillation de l'aiguille aimantée immédiatement après le passage d'un orage, faites à l'Observatoire Royal à Paris le 3 Août 1783. Vol. 6 Phys., Mannheim 1790, p. 312

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jean Chappe d'Auteroche (abbé), Jean-Dominique Cassini, José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez: A voyage to California: to observe the transit of Venus , London 1778, p. 111 ( full text in the Google book search).
  2. ^ List of former members since 1666: Letter W. Académie des sciences, accessed on March 14, 2020 (French).
  3. ^ Johann Georg Krünitz : Economic Encyclopedia . Vol. 89. Pauli, Berlin 1802, p. 86 ( full text in the Google book search).
personal data
SURNAME Wallot, Johann Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wallot, Jean Guillaume
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-French astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH 1743
PLACE OF BIRTH Oppenheim
DATE OF DEATH July 27, 1794
Place of death Paris