The Geodesic Officers at the Army's Geographic Service and the Measurement of the Quito Meridian's Arc (1901-1906)

Schiavon, Martina

doi:10.4000/histoiremesure.1746

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…27 On the strength of Poincaré cheerleading, the French government authorized a new expedition to remeasure the arc of the meridian through Quito, Ecuador. 28 While Poincaré stayed at home, as the scientific secretary, he was foremost in charge of the spherical triangulations (Figure 2) 29 that were returned to Paris. He was one of the intellectual spirits of this major geodetic expedition to weigh the center of the Earth.…”

Section: Geodesymentioning

confidence: 99%

Poincaré and his polarization sphere

Kahr

2021

Chirality

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In a text (1892) on light, Jules Henri Poincaré introduced a geometrical device for tracking the polarization of state of light interacting with matter. Poincaré first mapped all polarization ellipses onto the surface of sphere and changes of state were represented as rotations from one point to another about prescribed axes depending on linear optical properties of the medium. Here, we consider how Poincaré, the mathematician, invented his sphere. Poincaré's professional activities in the service of geodesy appear at first glance to provide a borrowed geometry for his one-to-one mapping of polarization ellipses to global lines of latitude and longitude. However, this association falls apart in the face of a close reading of Poincaré's biography and his influences, especially the research interests of his teachers from the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecoles de Mines. The work of Tissot and Mallard on distortion ellipses in cartography and the etiology of optical activity in crystals, respectively, together with Poincaré's own study of the qualitative theory of differential equations, provide the iconography of, and motivation for, the sphere. Whether Poincaré's mentors were unwitting partners in the invention of the sphere-it is impossible to be sure-Poincaré's otherworldly geometric sensibilities carried him through isometries (rotations) on hyperbolic planes and beyond. The apparent ingenuity behind Poincaré's sphere is diminished in comparison to his fulsome achievements. Moreover, Poincaré's considerations of the psychology of invention further emphasize that sometimes great ideas arrive to those fortunate to receive them by mechanisms that resist interpretation.

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Section: Geodesymentioning

confidence: 99%

Poincaré and his polarization sphere

Kahr

2021

Chirality

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“…Longer-term studies about scientists and universities in France include [Charle 1994], [Fox 1995]. For a special focus on mathematicians and WWI, see [Schiavon 2003, Mazliak & Tazzioli 2009, Durand et al 2013, Schiavon 2014. Among useful recent biographical studies besides those already quoted (n. 3), let us mention [Letté 2004, Moissinac & Roussel 2010, Auvinet 2013.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…It functioned as a clearing house where official communications and private conversations fostered the continuous exchange of ideas between scientists of various disciplines and, via the reporters attending its weekly séances, towards the general public. Mathematicians also played a significant role in the Bureau des longitudes where they were involved in scientific enterprises that had clear political undertones, such as meridian measurements in Ecuador [Schiavon 2006].Recent curricular reforms in secondary education-to which mathematicians contributed abundantly, Darboux being President of the Science Curriculum Reform Committee-considerably increased the place of mathematics and science in the lycée. Between 1902 and 1905, mathematicians such as Borel and Poincaré publicized a view of high school that prepared pupils for the realities of modern industrial society and left considerable room to the teaching of mathematical and scientific disciplines.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…For a special focus on mathematicians and WWI, see [Schiavon 2003 value of such descriptions and the role of WWI in the transformations of mathematics and of its dominant images, we consider the fate of mathematicians especially in so far as they intervened in public debates as technical experts, as intellectuals, or as the architects of science policies. 7 We follow rather closely and chronologically the evolution of mathematicians' roles at the Academy, in the military, and in Government during the war.…”

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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The total war of Paris mathematicians

Aubin¹,

Gispert²,

Goldstein³

2014

History of Mathematics

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Abstract. From 1914 to 1918, Paris mathematicians were highly mobilized for war. From their standpoint, the war was indeed total, touching most aspects of their life. In this chapter, we discuss three areas of their wartime experience : military expertise, scientific and innovation policies, and intellectual debates about the relation between science and society. We establish that Paris mathematicians' early role as the unquestioned leaders of the scientific mobilization was anchored in a prewar context where mathematics held a high status in the sciences and society. In wartime, we focus on mathematicians' activities at the Academy of Sciences and in Government and pay special attention to their contribution to sound-ranging and ballistics. We find that mathematicians' roles underwent significant changes during the course of the conflict and assess the effects of war on institutional reconstruction, internationalism, and modernism. In contrast to the view made popular by members of Bourbaki's first generation-that is, a sharp decline in postwar mathematics in Paris due to mass casualty on the front-we argue that the survivors of the war generations adhered to views of mathematics that were strikingly at odds with the ones Bourbaki members would start promoting in the 1930s.From the very day war broke out in August 1914, Paris mathematicians were prominent actors in the scientific mobilization consented by France. In the decades preceding the First World War, they had enjoyed a rather comfortable situation. France had a great tradition in mathematics and Paris remained one of the most attractive places for mathematical research-perhaps the place to be in the domains of real and complex analysis where significant advances had occurred since 1900, when the International Congress of Mathematicians (hereinafter ICM) had taken place in the French capital. As often in the past, Paris mathematicians held many center-stage positions in scientific institutions, universities, observatories, as well as on an international level. From 1900 to 1917, for instance, the Perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Sciences was a mathematician, Gaston Darboux (1842Darboux ( -1917 and, after his death, another mathematician, the analystÉmile Picard (1856Picard ( -1941 was elected to his seat. Mathematicians had also become influential cultural and political figures in the capital, and some of them were increasingly involved in public affairs, as the analyst and mathematical physicist Paul Painlevé (1863-1933; figures 7 & 9), elected Member of Parliament for Paris in 1906. The main reference for the mathematical life in 1870 remains [Gispert 1991. Complements can be found, on the French Association for the Advancement of Science, in [Gispert 2002], and, on the history of mathematical education, in [Belhoste et al. 1996, Gispert et al. 2007]. The notion of cultural capital and the particular example of Paris has been discussed in [Roche & Charle 2002, Dierig et al. 2003]. 2 A Professor at the Collège de France and a member of the Acade...

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Polar motion measurement at the Observatoire de Lyon in the late nineteenth century

Pécontal¹

2011

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A

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The Geodesic Officers at the Army's Geographic Service and the Measurement of the Quito Meridian's Arc (1901-1906)

Cited by 9 publications

References 20 publications

Poincaré and his polarization sphere

Poincaré and his polarization sphere

The total war of Paris mathematicians

Polar motion measurement at the Observatoire de Lyon in the late nineteenth century

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