Marc-Auguste Pictet

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Marc-Auguste Pictet
scientific journalist

Marc-Auguste Pictet (French: [piktɛ]; 23 July 1752 – 19 April 1825) was a Swiss scientific journalist and experimental natural philosopher.

Pictet's main contribution to learning was his editing of the scientific section of the

physical science, especially calorimetry, but also astronomy,[1] geology, meteorology and technology, especially chronometry and the manufacture of fine earthenware.[2]

Life

He was born in

Republic of Geneva on 23 July 1752, the son of Charles Pictet, a military officer serving in the mercenary troops of the Netherlands, and his wife, Marie Dunant.[3]

Marc-Auguste studied natural philosophy and

Horace-Bénédict de Saussure. In 1786, he would succeed him as professor of natural philosophy at the Academy of Geneva.[5]

By this time, he had assisted Saussure with an experiment that demonstrated the existence of what would later be called

Lavoisier's ideas on chemistry
.

In 1791, Pictet was one of the twelve founding members of the

Bibliothèque Universelle de Genève
.

As the second director of the Geneva Observatory (1790-1819), Pictet oversaw the installation of a

Great St. Bernard mountain in the Alps
.

In 1815, the year Geneva adhered to the

Swiss Society of Natural Sciences [fr
].

Pictet was a Fellow of the

Académie des Sciences from 1802,[10] and a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities from 1808.[11] His expertise, relationships and correspondence network included hundreds of scholars,[12] extending throughout Western Europe and as far as the United States. In a letter to President George Washington in 1795, Thomas Jefferson wrote that he saw Pictet and his colleagues (including Saussure and Senebrier) as "standing foremost among the literati of Europe".[13][14]

Legacy

Since 1990, the Geneva Society of Physics and Natural History has offered a yearly award in history of science called the Marc-Auguste Pictet Prize [fr]. It also awards a yearly medal to "a scholar whose work is recognized as an authority in the history of science". Winners are chosen by a panel of University of Geneva professors and field experts.

The lunar crater Pictet was named in his honour in 1935 by astronomers Blagg and Müller.[15]

Family

In 1766, he married Susanne Francoise Turrettini (1757-1811). The couple had three daughters: Dorothée Marie Anne (1777-1841), who married the Swiss Councillor of State Isaac Vernet [fr], Caroline (1780-1841) and Albertine (1785-1834).[16]

See also

  • Jean Rilliet, Jean Cassaigneau, Marc-Auguste Pictet ou le rendez-vous de l’Europe universelle, 1752–1825, Genève, Slatkine, 1995 (
    ISBN 9782051013475
    ) (OCLC 36520875) 784 p.
  • Jean-Daniel Candaux, Histoire de la famille Pictet 1474–1974, Genève, Braillard, 1974.

References

  1. ^ The lunar crater Pictet was named in his honour.
  2. ^ René Sigrist & Didier Grange, La faïencerie des Pâquis. Histoire d'une expérience industrielle, 1786-1796, Genève, Passé-Présent, 1995.
  3. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 24 December 2017.
  4. ^ Jean-Daniel Candaux, Histoire de la famille Pictet 1474-1974, Genève, Braillardexper, 1974, p. 271.
  5. ^ Jean-Daniel Candaux, Histoire de la famille Pictet, 1474-1974, Genève, Braillard, 1974
  6. doi:10.1119/1.14305
    .
  7. ^ David M. Bickerton, Marc-Auguste and Charles Pictet, the "Bibliothèque Britannique" (1796-1815) and the dissemination of British literature and science on the Continent, Geneva, Slatkine, 1986.
  8. ^ List of Fellows of the Royal Society 1660–2019. Royal Society, May 11, 2022 (PDF; 1,4 MB).
  9. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 24 December 2017.
  10. Académie des Sciences
  11. Bavarian Academy of Sciences
    , retrieved May 11, 2022.
  12. ^ René Sigrist (ed.), Marc-Auguste Pictet, Correspondence : sciences et techniques, Geneva, Slatkine, 1996-2004 (4 vols).
  13. ^ Isaac Benguigui, Genève et ses savants : physiciens, mathématiciens et chimistes aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles, Genève, Slatkine, 2006, p. 79.
  14. ^ “To George Washington from Thomas Jefferson, 23 February 1795,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-17-02-0380. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, vol. 17, 1 October 1794–31 March 1795, ed. David R. Hoth and Carol S. Ebel. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013, pp. 564–569.]
  15. ^ "Marc-Auguste Pictet". Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. USGS Astrogeology Research Program.
  16. ^ Généalogie de la famille Pictet de Genève, Descendants de Pierre Pictet reçu bourgeois le 14 octobre 1474, Genève, Fondation des archives de la famille Pictet, 2010.

External links

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