Pierre Prévost

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Scientist Pierre Prévost in the Journal Officiel Illustré De L'Exposition Nationale , Switzerland Geneva 1896

Pierre Prévost (born March 3, 1751 in Geneva ; † April 8, 1839 ibid) was a French-Swiss philosopher and physicist . In 1791 he showed that all bodies radiate warmth , whether warm or cold.

biography

As the son of an evangelical clergyman, he was also supposed to start a career in the church. Instead, he turned to law school, which he soon gave up in order to devote himself to teaching and traveling. Prévost became a friend of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Dugald Stewart . His teacher and friend Georges-Louis Le Sage also had a great influence on him .

In 1780 Friedrich II appointed him to Berlin as professor of philosophy and made him a member of the Academy of Sciences . Here he met Joseph-Louis Lagrange and became aware of physical problems.

After studying economic policy and the fine arts for several years (including writing a dissertation on poetry), he returned to Geneva, where he began his work on magnetism and warmth. He was a professor of philosophy until 1810, when he was appointed to the chair of physics.

In 1796 he was elected a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and in 1806 an external member of the Royal Society .

Act

physics

In the field of physics, under the influence of his teacher Georges-Louis Le Sage , he devised several mechanistic explanations for magnetism (1788) and other phenomena. His main achievement was that he found out that bodies are kept in dynamic thermal equilibrium with one another through the constant exchange of particles. (1792, where Prevost stated that he was following an idea of ​​his teacher.) He also published a treatise in 1818, the first part of which contained some posthumous fragments of Le Sage and the second part of some of his own mechanistic views.

Further work

Many of his publications dealt with subjects such as philology, philosophy and political economy. Prevost, Jacques Mallet-du-Pan's cousin , translated the works of Adam Smith and the East India Company professor Thomas Malthus . He also translated and commented on Euripides . In 1805 he wrote a comprehensive biography of Le Sage. In addition, in 1823 he published fragments of letters from important contemporaries of Isaac Newton , such as B. Nicolas Fatio de Duillier .

See also

swell

  • Prévost, Pierre: De l'origine des forces magnétiques . Barde, Menge et Cie., Geneva 1788 ( cnam.fr ).
  • Prévost, Pierre: Research physico-mécaniques sur la chaleur . Barde, Manget & Cie, Geneva 1792.
  • Prévost, Pierre: Notice de la Vie et des Ecrits de George Louis Le Sage . JJ Paschoud, Geneva 1805 ( archive.org ).
  • Prévost, Pierre: Essai sur le calorique rayonnant . JJ Paschoud, Geneva & Paris 1809 ( google.com ).
  • Prévost, Pierre (Ed.): Deux Traités de Physique Mécanique . JJ Paschoud, Geneva 1818 ( uni-goettingen.de ).
  • Prévost, Pierre: Fragmens de lettres de divers savans contemporains de Newton, précédés d'une remarque sur quelques hypothèses de Newton lui-même . In: Bibliothèque universelle des sciences, belles-lettres et arts, faisant suite à la Bibliothèque Britannique . tape 23 . JJ Paschoud, Geneva 1823.
  • Weiss, Burghard: Between physical theology and positivism. Pierre Prevost (1751-1839) and the corpuscular kinetic physics of the Geneva School . Peter Lang, Frankfurt 1988.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fellows Directory. Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. (PDF file) Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed March 31, 2020 .
  2. ^ Entry on Prevost, Pierre (1751–1839) in the Archives of the Royal Society , London
  3. ^ JC Maxwell: Theory of Heat . Longmans, Green and Co, London, 1871, pp. 221-222.
  4. ^ The Laws of Radiation and Absorption: Memoirs by Prévost, Stewart, Kirchhoff, Bunsen . American Book Company, 1901.
personal data
SURNAME Prévost, Pierre
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Franco-Swiss philosopher and physicist
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1751
PLACE OF BIRTH Geneva
DATE OF DEATH April 8, 1839
Place of death Geneva