Nicolas Sarrabat
Nicolas Sarrabat (born February 9, 1698 in Lyon , † April 27, 1737 in Paris ) was a French Jesuit , physicist and naturalist.
He was the son of the painter Daniel Sarrabat (1666-1748). Sarrabat entered the Jesuit order in 1712, taught philosophy in Nîmes and Avignon and from 1731 natural sciences and mathematics in Avignon (where he met the Marquis de Caumont and remained in correspondence after his departure), Toulon (from 1734) and in Marseille, where he was royal professor of mathematics.
From 1727 to 1729 he received three prizes from the Bordeaux Academy: the first for an essay on the variation of the magnetic needle, then on the origin of the salt content of the sea and for an essay on the variability of winds. Since he had received three prizes in a row, he was excluded from further award publications in order, as it was officially said, not to discourage the others. Nevertheless, in 1735 he again submitted a prize paper on the circulation of juices in plants under the name La Baisse (Dissertation on the circulation de la sève dans les plantes), which received the Academy's prize, even if not all members were convinced of its thesis .
He is best known for this essay because he provided experimental evidence of the circulation of plant sap in the plant. He traced the sap flow, taking him with the juice of pokeweed colored. The method was not new (similar experiments were carried out before the Royal Society in 1671), but Sarrabat carried it out most thoroughly and thus influenced, among others, Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau (Physique des Arbres) and Charles Bonnet (Recherches sur l´usage des feuilles dans les plantes).
In addition to the presentation of his experiments, there are also theoretical considerations. He regards plants as machines whose driving force is the exchange of inner and outer air. In the spring, the internal air is heated and the plant begins to sprout, since the pores, clogged by sap that has thickened in winter, do not allow any exchange with the external air. He assumes that plants breathe like animals and sees the pulp of the trees as an analogue of the lungs.
In 1735 he took part in an archaeological expedition under Captain de Caylus (the brother of Anne Claude de Caylus ) in the Mediterranean (including Malta, Milo). Letters from Sarrabat to the Marquis de Caumont on the trip have been preserved. During their excursion they also dug near the later site of the Venus de Milo .
He is also known for the discovery of a very bright comet, which he observed with the naked eye on August 1, 1729 in Nîmes. It is known as Comet of 1729, C / 1729 P1, or Comet Sarabat (misspelled Sarrabat's name by Cassini). Jacques Cassini was able to observe him until January 18, 1730. It is considered to be the brightest comet ever observed.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Archives historiques et statistiques du département du Rhône, Volume 6, May 1 to October 30, 1827, Lyon, Paris 1878, p. 86 . Sometimes 1739 is also given as the year of death.
- ↑ J. Brucker, Excursion archéologique de deux Français à Milo, en 1735, Jésuite Études, Volume 102, 1905, pp. 51–73
- ↑ Stefan Kirschner, The Theory of the Plant Juice Cycle, Habilitation University Munich 2002, pp. 70f, pdf ( Memento of the original from July 13, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ WT Lynn: Sarrabat and the comet of 1729, The Observatory, Volume 19, 1896, pp. 239-240
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sarrabat, Nicolas |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | La bear market |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French Jesuit, physicist and naturalist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 9, 1698 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Lyon |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 27, 1737 |
| Place of death | Paris |