Related papers: Joseph Devaux (1902-1936) Meteorologist at Pic du …
Felix de Roy (1883-1942), an internationality recognised amateur astronomer, made significant contributions to variable star research. As an active observer, he made some 91,000 visual estimates of a number of different variable stars. A…
The Pic du Midi Observatory, situated at an altitude of 2890 meters, was always very hard to reach, and living there was difficult. Its history is a lesson in courage. It is also a lesson in creativity, because astronomers took advantage of…
We provide a brief biography of seven French astronomers and physicists and of a Russian astronomer from the 19th and 20th centuries. Roger Bouigue (1920-) was the director of Toulouse Observatory in the 1960s. Claude-Louis Mathieu…
Joseph-Nicolas Delisle was one of the most important scientists at the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences during the first period when Euler was working there. Euler was helping him in his work on astronomy and in geography. In this…
Jean Deshayes, a teacher of mathematics in his native France, single-handedly put Qu\'ebec on the map, literally. An accomplished astronomer, he used the lunar eclipse of 10--11 December 1685 to determine the settlement's longitude to…
The Sun has been observed through a telescope for four centuries. However, its study made a prodigious leap at the end of the nineteenth century with the appearance of photography and spectroscopy, then at the beginning of the following…
This paper discusses the wartime activities of the astronomer Charles Nordmann from the Paris Observatory. Nordmann was briefly mobilized in 1914 before starting to work on sound-ranging. He also wrote a witness account of the war as well…
Henri Camichel was an astronomer at Pic du Midi Observatory, where he contributed to the study of planets of the solar system and their satellites with Audouin Dollfus and his team. In 1961, with Charles Boyer, he found that the upper…
This is an English translation of a paper by the French physicist Alfred Potier (1840-1905) that originally appeared 150 years ago [A. Potier, ``Recherches sur l'int\'egration d'un syst\`eme d'\'equations aux diff\'erentielles partielles…
In 1492, for the first time, an unknown ocean opened up before sailors: weeks of navigation and no idea how to pinpoint their location. Since ancient times, navigators had known how to determine latitude by using the North Star, but the…
In the 2 March 1979 issue of Science 203 S. J. Peale, P. Cassen and R. T. Reynolds published their paper "Melting of Io by tidal dissipation" indicating "the dissipation of tidal energy in Jupiter's moon Io is likely to have melted a major…
Detlef D\"urr (1951-2021) was a theoretical and mathematical physicist who worked particularly on the foundations of quantum mechanics, electromagnetism, and statistical mechanics. This piece is a rather personal look back at him and his…
Galileo Galilei had sufficient skill as an observer and instrument builder to be able to measure the positions and apparent sizes of objects seen through his telescopes to an accuracy of 2" or better. However, Galileo had no knowledge of…
The observation of gaseous giant planets is of high scientific interest. Although they have been the targets of several spacecraft missions, there still remains a need for continuous ground-based observations. As their atmospheres present…
Observations of the solar corona at the Pic du Midi began with Bernard Lyot and his spectro coronagraph installed on the multi-purpose equatorial mount of the Baillaud cupola. It was not until 1956 that domes and instruments specifically…
This paper describes advances in solar magnetography and developments in instrumental techniques of polarimetry and spectroscopy made at Paris-Meudon observatory in the second half of the twentieth century. The adventure started from Lyot…
The voyage of the "First Fleet" from Britain to the new colony of New South Wales was not only a military enterprise, it also had a distinct scientific purpose. Britain's fifth Astronomer Royal, Nevil Maskelyne, had selected William Dawes,…
Meteorological data have been used to calculate refractive index fluctuations - the indicator of optical instability of the Earth's atmosphere. The calculations were made for standard pressure levels of the atmosphere in winter and summer.…
This paper celebrates the remarkable life, science and legacy of Abb\'e Georges Lema\^itre, the Belgian cleric and professor of physics; he was the architect of the fireworks model for the origin of the universe. He died half a century ago,…
The present paper deals with the life and some aspects of the scientific contributions of the mathematician Ren\'e Gateaux, killed during World War 1 at the age of 25. Though he died very young, he left interesting results in functional…