Description
This volume tells the story, largely unknown, of a major figure in French engineering and engineering education through the Revolutionary, Napoleonic and Bourbon periods to the first years following the revolution of 1830. Prony is best-known today for creating a massive collection of mathematical tables in the 1790s, the largest ever compiled; and for the dynamometer for measuring the work-rate of waterwheels and related hydraulic machines. He was also a founder-professor of mathematics at the cole Polytechnique, and director of the cole Nationale des Ponts et Chausses, exercising much influence on the national body of civil engineers. This volume not only describes Prony’s life and work, but presents selections (in French) of the many manuscripts Prony left behind. Prony is an example of the ingnieur savant, the scientist concerned with both teaching and research in engineering issues.
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