Dominique, comte de Cassini, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Dominique, comte de Cassini

French astronomer

Date of Birth: 30-Jun-1748

Place of Birth: Paris, ĂŽle-de-France, France

Date of Death: 18-Oct-1845

Profession: astronomer, cartographer

Nationality: France

Zodiac Sign: Cancer


Show Famous Birthdays Today, France

👉 Worldwide Celebrity Birthdays Today

About Dominique, comte de Cassini

  • Jean-Dominique, comte de Cassini (30 June 1748 – 18 October 1845) was a French astronomer, son of CĂ©sar-François Cassini de Thury. Cassini was born at the Paris Observatory.
  • In 1784 he succeeded his father as director of the observatory; but his plans for its restoration and re-equipment were wrecked in 1793 by the animosity of the National Assembly.
  • His position having become intolerable, he resigned on 6 September and was thrown into prison in 1794, but released after seven months.
  • He then withdrew to Thury, where he died in 1845.He published in 1770 an account of a voyage to America in 1768, undertaken as the commissary of the French Academy of Sciences with a view to testing Pierre Le Roy’s watches at sea.
  • In 1783 he sent a memoir to the Royal Society in which he proposed a trigonometric survey connecting the observatories of Paris and Greenwich for the purpose of better determining the latitude and longitude of the latter.
  • His proposal was accepted, resulting in the Anglo-French Survey (1784–1790). The results of the survey were published in 1791. He visited England for the purposes of the work with Pierre MĂ©chain and Adrien-Marie Legendre, and the three met William Herschel at Slough.
  • He completed his father's map of France, which was published by the Academy of Sciences in 1793.
  • It served as the basis for the Atlas National (1791), showing France in departments.
  • He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1788.Cassini's MĂ©moires pour servir Ă  l’histoire de l’observatoire de Paris (1810) embodied portions of an extensive work, the prospectus of which he had submitted to the Academy of Sciences in 1774.
  • The volume included his Eloges of several academicians, and the biography of his great-grandfather, Giovanni Cassini.His youngest son Henri was a botanist of some note.

Read more at Wikipedia

See Also