Alexis Claude de Clairault (or Clairaut) (May 3, 1713 – May 17, 1765) was a French mathematician and thinker. May 3 is the 123rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (124th in leap years). ... // Events April 11 - War of the Spanish Succession: Treaty of Utrecht June 23 - French residents of Acadia given one year to declare allegiance to Britain or leave Nova Scotia Canada first Orrery built by George Graham Ongoing events Great Northern War (1700-1721) War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1713... May 17 is the 137th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (138th in leap years). ... 1765 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Alexis Clairault

Image File history File links Download high resolution version (840x1000, 934 KB) Alexis Claude Clairault (1713–1765), French mathematician. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (840x1000, 934 KB) Alexis Claude Clairault (1713–1765), French mathematician. ...

Biography

Clairault was born in Paris, France, where his father taught mathematics. He was a prodigy — at the age of twelve he wrote a memoir on four geometrical curves and under his father's tuition he made such rapid progress in the subject that in his thirteenth year he read before the Académie française an account of the properties of four curves which he had discovered. When only sixteen he finished a treatise on tortuous curves, Recherches sur les courbes a double courbure, which, on its publication in 1731, procured his admission into the French Academy of Sciences, although he was below the legal age as he was only eighteen. The Eiffel Tower has become the symbol of Paris throughout the world. ... Euclid, Greek mathematician, 3rd century BC, known today as the father of geometry; shown here in a detail of The School of Athens by Raphael. ... A child prodigy, or simply prodigy, is someone who is a master of one or more skills or arts at an early age. ... The Académie française, or French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. ... Louis XIV visiting the Académie in 1671 The French Academy of Sciences (Académie des sciences) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. ...

In 1736, together with Pierre Louis Maupertuis, he took part in the expedition to Lapland, which was undertaken for the purpose of estimating a degree of the meridian, and on his return he published his treatise Théorie de la figure de la terre (1743). In this work he promulgated the theorem, known as Clairaut's theorem, which connects the gravity at points on the surface of a rotating ellipsoid with the compression and the centrifugal force at the equator. Events January 26 - Stanislaus I of Poland abdicates his throne. ... Pierre Louis Maupertuis, here wearing lapmudes or a fur coat from his Lapland expedition. ... National anthem Sámi soga lávlla Languages Sami, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Russian Area ca. ... On the earth, a meridian is a north-south line between the North Pole and the South Pole. ... In mathematical analysis, Clairauts theorem states that if has continuous second partial derivatives at then for In words, the partial derivatives of this function commute. ... Gravity is a force of attraction that acts between bodies that have mass. ... 3D rendering of an ellipsoid In mathematics, an ellipsoid is a type of quadric that is a higher dimensional analogue of an ellipse. ... The equator is an imaginary circle drawn around a planet (or other astronomical object) at a distance halfway between the poles. ...

He obtained an ingenious approximate solution of the problem of the three bodies; in 1750 he gained the prize of the St Petersburg Academy for his essay Théorie de la lune; and in 1759 he calculated the perihelion of Halley's comet. Events March 2 - Small earthquake in London, England April 4 - Small earthquake in Warrington, England August 23 - Small earthquake in Spalding, England September 30 - Small earthquake in Northampton, England November 16 – Westminster Bridge officially opened Jonas Hanway is the first Englishman to use an umbrella James Gray reveals her sex... Russian Academy of Sciences (Росси́йская Акаде́мия Нау́к) is the national academy of Russia. ... This article is about several astronomical terms (apogee & perigee, aphelion & perihelion, generic equivalents based on apsis, and related but rarer terms. ... Edmond Halley. ...

The Théorie de la lune is strictly Newtonian in character. This contains the explanation of the motion of the apsis which had previously puzzled astronomers, and which Clairault had at first deemed so inexplicable that he was on the point of publishing a new hypothesis as to the law of attraction when it occurred to him to carry the approximation to the third order, and he thereupon found that the result was in accordance with the observations. This was followed in 1754 by some lunar tables. Clairault subsequently wrote various papers on the orbit of the Moon, and on the motion of comets as affected by the perturbation of the planets, particularly on the path of Halley's comet. A diagram of Keplerian orbital elements. ... In physics, an orbit is the path that an object makes, around another object, whilst under the influence of a source of centripetal force, such as gravity. ... Bulk composition of the Moons mantle and crust estimated, weight percent Oxygen 42. ... Comet Hale-Bopp For other uses, see Comet (disambiguation). ... Comet Halley, officially designated 1P/Halley, more generally known as Halleys Comet after Edmond Halley, is a comet that can be seen every 75-76 years. ...

In 1731 he gave a demonstration of the fact noted by Newton that all curves of the third order were projections of one of five parabolas. Sir Isaac Newton, FRS (4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727) [OS: 25 December 1642 – 20 March 1727][1] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, alchemist, and natural philosopher, regarded by many as the greatest figure in the history of science. ...

In 1741 Clairault went on a scientific expedition to measure the length of a meridian degree on the Earth's surface, and on his return in 1743 he published his Théorie de la figure de la terre. This is founded on a paper by Colin Maclaurin, which had shown that a mass of homogeneous fluid set in rotation about a line through its centre of mass would, under the mutual attraction of its particles, take the form of a spheroid. This work of Clairault treated of heterogeneous spheroids and contains the proof of his formula for the accelerating effect of gravity in a place of latitude. In 1849 Stokes showed that the same result was true whatever was the interior constitution or density of the Earth, provided the surface was a spheroid of equilibrium of small ellipticity. On the earth, a meridian is a north-south line between the North Pole and the South Pole. ... Earth (IPA: , often referred to as the Earth, Terra, or Planet Earth) is the third planet in the solar system in terms of distance from the Sun, and the fifth largest. ... Colin Maclaurin Colin Maclaurin (February, 1698 - June 14, 1746) was a Scottish mathematician. ... The center of mass or center of inertia of an object is a point at which the objects mass can be assumed, for many purposes, to be concentrated. ... In mathematics, a spheroid is a quadric surface in three dimensions obtained by rotating an ellipse about one of its principal axes. ... Look up Heterogeneous in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... George Gabriel Stokes Sir George Gabriel Stokes, 1st Baronet (13 August 1819–1 February 1903) was an Anglo-Irish mathematician and physicist. ...

Clairault died in Paris in 1765.

References

• Grier, David Alan, When Computers Were Human, Princeton University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-691-09157-9.

The Princeton University Press is a publishing house, a division of Princeton University, that is highly respected in academic publishing. ...

See also

• Clairault's equation
• Clairault's theorem
• Human computer

In mathematics, a Clairauts equation is a differential equation of the form To solve such an equation, we differentiate with respect to x, yielding so Hence, either or In the former case, C = dy/dx for some constant C. Substituting this into the Clairauts equation, we have the... In mathematical analysis, Clairauts theorem states that if has continuous second partial derivatives at then for In words, the partial derivatives of this function commute. ... Before mechanical and electronic computers, the term computer, in use from the mid 17th century, meant a human undertaking mathematical calculations. ...

External link

• O'Connor, John J., and Edmund F. Robertson. "Alexis Clairault". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.