JEAN

See also:

• BAPTISTE

BAPTISTE

See also:

• JOSEPH
• JOSEPH, COMTE DE (1785-1870)
• JOSEPH, FATHER (FRANCOIS LECLERC DU TREMBLAY) (1577-1638)

JOSEPH

See also:

• JEAN BAPTISTE JOSEPH DELAMBRE (1749-1822)

DELAMBRE (1749-1822)  , French astronomer, was born at Amiens on the 19th of September 1749 . His college course, begun at Amiens under the abbe Jacques Delille, was finished in Paris, where he took a scholarship at the college of Plessis . Despite extreme penury, he then continued to study indefatigably ancient and modern languages, history and literature, finally turning his attention to mathematics and astronomy . In 1771 he became tutor to the son of M. d'Assy, receiver-general of finances; and while acting in this capacity, attended the lectures of J . J . Lalande, who, struck with his remarkable acquirements, induced M. d'Assy in 1788 to install an observatory for his benefit at his own residence . Here Delambre observed and computed almost uninterruptedly, and in 1790 obtained for his Tables of Uranus the prize offered by the academy of sciences, of which body he was elected a member- two years later . He was admitted to the Institute on its organization in 1795, and became, in 1803, perpetual secretary to its mathematical section . He, moreover, belonged from 1795 to the bureau of longitudes . From 1792 to 1799 he was occupied with the measurement of the arc of the meridian extending from Dunkirk to Barcelona, and published a detailed account of the operations in Base du systeme metrique (3 vols., 18o6, 1807, 181o), for which he was awarded in 1810 the decennial prize of the Institute . The first consul nominated him inspector-general of studies; he succeeded Lalande in 1807 as professor of astronomy at the College de France, and filled the office of treasurer to the imperial university from 18o8 until its suppression in 1815 . Delambre died at Paris on the 19th of August 1822 .

His last years were devoted to researches into the history of

science, resulting in the successive publication of: Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne (2 vols., 1817); Histoire de l'astronomie an moyen dge (1819); Histoire de l'astronomie moderne (2 vols., 1821); and Histoire de l'astronomie an X VIII' siecle, issued in 1827 under the care of C . L . Mathieu . These books show marvellous erudition; but some of the judgments expressed in them are warped by prejudice; they are diffuse in style and overloaded with computations . He wrote besides: Tables ecliptiques des satellites de Jupiter, inserted in the third edition of J . J . Lalande's Astronomie (1792), and republished in an improved form by the bureau of longitudes in 1817; Methodes analytiques pour la determination d'un arc du meridien (1799); Tables du soleil (publiees par le bureau des longitudes) (1806) ; Rapport historique sur les progres des sciences mat hematiques depuis l' an 1789 (1810); Abrege d'astronomie (1813); Astronomie theorique et pratique (1814); &c . See J . B . J . Fourier's " Eloge " in Memoires de l'acad. des sciences, t. iv.; Ch . Dupin, Revue encyclopedique, t. xvi .

(1822); Biog. universelle, t. lxii . (C . L . Mathieu) ; Max .

Marie, Hist. des sciences, x . 31; R . Grant, Hist. of Physical Astr. pp . 96, 142, 165; R . Wolf, Geschichte der Astronomie, p . 779, &e . (A . M .