French work of the Minor Academy of Sciences. French Academy

In 1635, the Duke of Richelieu proposed the foundation of the French Academy, with the help of which the cardinal intended to compile a single dictionary of the French language and monitor its correctness and purity. The motto on the seal of the academy, presented by the cardinal, was carved "For the sake of immortality." The meaning of these words indicated the immortality of experts in the French language.

The beginning of the formation of the academy

In the house of the writer Valentin Conrar, a small circle of writers gathered, where conversations were held mainly about art. When the petition submitted to Parliament by Cardinal Richelieu for the establishment of the French Academy was approved, its director, chancellor, and secretary were elected members of the circle. At the beginning of January 1635, Louis XIII granted a patent confirming the opening of the Academy. Cardinal Richelieu was considered the patron of the French Academy, after whose death, his new successors were announced - the adviser Seger, Louis XV, the hereditary kings, the emperor and government leaders.

Initially, the mission of the members of the academy was to standardize and purify the French language in order to make it understandable and of high quality for the entire people of France. There was a need to create a Dictionary of the Academy, the first edition of which was published in 1694.

Another task was the distribution of donations, the provision of material assistance to scientists and literary societies, the disadvantaged, large families and widows. The Academy approved the Great Literary Prize, the annual presentation of which testified to the Academy's attention to the spread of a single French language.

Origin of armchairs

In the French Academy during its formation, there was only one chair, which belonged to its director, the rest of the members, regardless of position, had only chairs. When the completely infirm Cardinal d'Estres asked for a more comfortable chair to sit on, his request was conveyed to Louis XV. The king ordered 40 chairs to be brought into the meeting room, thus establishing forever equality among academicians.

Among the famous writers there were many talented candidates for membership in the academy. The writer Arsene Vse coined the expression "forty-first" chair, thus rewarding those who have never been a member of the French Academy, but who fully deserved this title. Among them were the famous Balzac, Descartes, Diderot, Beaumarchais, Zola, Lesage and many others.

Election to the French Academy

During the existence of the Academy, its members approved more than 700 prominent people - poets, writers, philosophers, scientists, doctors, representatives of theatrical art, art critics, statesmen and military figures, representatives of the church. All of them had great merits before France and its state language. Being a member of the French Academy was considered the highest honor - a kind of dedication. The first woman to be elected a member of the academy was Marguerite Yourcenar, after whom four more women have earned such an honor.

The French Academy was able to maintain its institutions for almost three and a half centuries, working regularly, except during periods of revolution and directory.

How to get there

The address: 23 Quai de Conti, Paris 75006
Telephone: +33 1 44 41 43 00
Site: academie-francaise.fr
Metro: Métro Saint Germain des Pres, Mabillon,Pont Neuf, Louvre - Rivoli
Updated: 05/18/2016

Not to be confused with French Academy. The visit of Louis XIV to the Academy in 1671 French Academy of Sciences (fr. & ... Wikipedia

This term has other meanings, see Academy (meanings). The Academy of Sciences (AN) is a non-profit organization that brings together people involved in various sciences. Members of such academies are called academicians. Contents 1 Russia 1.1 ... Wikipedia

Not to be confused with French Academy of Sciences ... Wikipedia

The Pont des Arts leads to the French Academy from the Louvre. The French Academy (French Académie Française, it should not be confused with the Paris (French) Academy of Sciences), a scientific institution in France, whose goal is to study the French language and ... ... Wikipedia

Louis XIV's visit to the Academy in 1671 The French Academy of Sciences (French: Académie des sciences) is a scientific organization founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean Baptiste Colbert to inspire and protect French scientists. She ... ... Wikipedia

This term has other meanings, see Academy of Sciences. The building of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts on the New Square in Ljubljana ... Wikipedia

The title of one of the first editions of Gargantua and Pantagruel (Lyon, 1571) ... Wikipedia

This article is about the Russian Academy, which was engaged in the Russian language at the end of the 18th and the middle of the 19th centuries. For the Academy of Sciences of the same time, see St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. For the modern Russian Academy of Sciences, see Russian Academy of Sciences. Academy ... Wikipedia

Books

, E. Bezu. Mathematics course. The arithmetic of Etienne Bezu E. Bezu, a member of the French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences, an examiner for students of the Artillery and Naval Corps, was translated ...

The best way to approach the Saint-Germain quarter is from the river, from Louvre, over an elegant pedestrian bridge called the Bridge of Arts.

From here you will have a beautiful, now classic view of island of the City, with barges moored to the Conti embankment on the Left Bank and silhouettes Saint Jacques towers and the Town Hall building on the Right Bank.

The graceful dome and pediment that you will see at the end of the bridge belongs to the building of the Metropolitan College of the Four Nations, which now houses the world-renowned Institute of France (Institut de France).

Of the five academies of arts and sciences that make up the Institute, the oldest and most famous is the Académie française (Academy française), the most worthy collection of the best writers and scientists, whose honorable duty is to award literary prizes and observe the purity of the French language.

The latest achievement in the field of language preservation has been the French word "baladeur" for the player instead of the English "walkman", but in general, the efforts of pundits to combat Anglo-Saxon terms in science, management and computer science are hopelessly ineffective.

The title of academician is the highest degree of recognition of merit, therefore those who have been awarded this title are called “immortals” (immortel), although there is some irony in this. The fact is that by the time people are worthy of the title of academician, many of them are already quite advanced in age, so they really do not have the prospect of enjoying their title for a long time.

The list of "immortals" is small: at the time of this writing, there were about forty of them, including one cardinal and only two women. Visitors are allowed to walk in the courtyard.

If you politely address the clerk at the entrance, you will be given a pass to visit the magnificent Libraries Mazarin(Monday-Friday from 10.00 to 18.00; admission is free) looking into the hall, you will see how people involved in the history of religion are sitting in silence, surrounded by Corinthian columns, marble busts and shell candlesticks, enjoying reading folios of the 16th-17th centuries - their The library has about 200 thousand volumes.

Organizational structure of the Institut de France

(Institut de France) is the main official scientific institution of France, the organizational structure of which consists of an association of five national academies:

French Academy(Academie francaise), established under Cardinal Richelieu in 1635 to improve the French language and literature, consists of 40 members (“immortels”);

French Academy of inscriptions and belles lettres(Academie des inscriptions et belles-lettres), founded by Jean-Baptiste Colbert in February 1663, initially to compile inscriptions on monuments and medals in honor of Louis XIV, later united humanities scholars in the field of history, archeology and linguistics; the official status of the academy since 1701 has 55 French and 40 foreign members;

French Academy of Sciences(Academie des sciences), founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert for mathematics, natural sciences and medicine;

French Academy of Fine Arts(Academie des Beaux-Arts), created in 1803 as a result of the merger of the French Academy of Painting and Sculpture (founded in 1648, dissolved in 1793), the French Academy of Music (founded in 1669), the French Academy of Architecture (founded in 1671 ); the official status of the academy since 1816; cinematography and photography sections have now been added; 57 seats, of which 48 were occupied as of January 1, 2010.

French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences(Academie des sciences morales et politiques), founded in 1795, dissolved in 1803, re-established in 1832; currently has sections: philosophy; moral sciences and sociology; legislation, public law and jurisprudence; political economy, statistics and finance; history and geography; general.

Neighborhood of the Institut de France

House number 11 on the Quai de Conti, next to the Institute of France, is the building of the Mint (Hotel de Monet). At the end of the 18th century, it was converted into a mint, and now it houses Mint Museum(Monday-Friday, 11.00-17.30, Saturday and Sunday, 12.00-17.30; 8 euros).

The austere collection of the museum, containing coins of all kinds and devices for their manufacture, can only impress those who are nostalgic for the good old franc, or admirers of Balzac who want to see with their own eyes the money that flowed like water between the fingers of a young Rastignac, from golden louis to simple sous.

To the west of the Institut de France is the Higher National School of Fine Arts (Ecole-de-Boe-Arts). On sunny days, her students, emerging artists, occupy the embankments, making numerous sketches in their notebooks.

Sometimes the school hosts open exhibitions of student work. Further west, at 5 bis Rue Verneuil, lived Serge Gainsbourg (until his death in 1991), a legendary man who opposed traditional art.

Now his daughter Charlotte, a famous film actress, lives in this house. Over the years, the garden wall of this house has been covered with several layers of graffiti quoting the words of Gainsbourg's most famous poems, such as "God smokes Havana cigars"; there were also silhouettes applied with spray paint.

(President of the Academy), it is one of the five Academies.

story

Heroic portrayal of the activities of the Academy from 1698

The Academy of Sciences traces its origins to Colbert's plan to create a general academy. He selected a small group of scholars who met on December 22, 1666 in the King's Library, and then held working meetings there twice a week. The first 30 years of the Academy's existence were relatively informal, as no statutes had yet been laid down for the institution. Unlike its British counterpart, the Academy was founded as an authority. The academy is expected to remain apolitical and avoid discussion of religious and social issues (Conner, 2005, p. 385).

On 20 January 1699, Louis XIV gave the Society its first rules. The Academy was named Royal Academy of Sciences and was installed in the Louvre in Paris. After this reform, the Academy began to publish a volume every year with information about all the work done by its members and obituaries for members who had died. This reform also codified the method by which members of the Academy could receive pensions for their work. On August 8, 1793, the National Convention abolished all academies. From August 22, 1795, National Institute of Sciences and Arts was put in place, bringing together the old academies of sciences, literature and art, among them the Académie française and the Academie des sciences. Nearly all of the old members of the previously abolished Académie were formally re-elected and reclaimed their ancient seats. Among the exceptions was Dominique, Comte de Cassini, who refused to take his place. Membership of the Academy was not limited to scientists: in 1798 Napoleon Bonaparte was elected a member of the Academy and three years later president in connection with his Egyptian expedition which had a scientific component. In 1816, again renamed the "Royal Academy of Sciences" became autonomous, with the formation of the part; the head of state became his patron. In the Second Republic, the name returned to the Academy of Sciences. During this period the Academy was financed and accountable to the Ministry of Public Education. The academy came to control French patent laws during the eighteenth century, acting as a link between the artisans' knowledge to the public domain. As a result, academics have dominated technological activities in France (Conner, 2005, p. 385). The Proceedings of the Academy were published under the title Comptes Rendus de l"Academy of Sciences (1835-1965). Rendus Comptes now a series of magazines with seven titles. The publication can be found on the website of the French National Library.

In 1818, the French Academy of Sciences announced a competition to explain the properties of light. The engineer Fresnel entered this competition by submitting a new wave theory of light. Poisson, one of the judges, studied Fresnel's theory in detail. Being a supporter of the particle-theory of light, he was looking for a way to refute it. Poisson thought he found a flaw when he shows that Fresnel's theory predicts that on the axes a bright spot would exist in the shadow of a circular obstruction where there should be total darkness according to the particle-theory of light. Poisson's spot is not easy to observe in everyday situations, so it was only natural for Poisson to interpret it as absurd, and that he should refute Fresnel's theory. However, the head of the committee, Dominique François-Jean Arago, and who incidentally later became Prime Minister of France, decided to carry out the experiment in more detail. He molded a 2mm metal disc to a glass plate with wax. To everyone's surprise, he managed to observe the predicted spot, which convinced most scientists of the wave nature of light.

For three centuries women were not admitted as members of the Academy. This meant that many women scientists were excluded, including two-time Nobel laureate Marie Curie, Nobel laureate Irene Joliot-Curie, mathematician Sophie Germain, and many other deserving women scientists. The first woman admitted as a corresponding member was Curie's student, Marguerite Perey, in 1962; the first female full member was Yvonne Shock-Bru in 1979.

Today Academy

Today, the Academy is one of the five academies that make up. Its members are elected for life. There are currently 150 full members, 300 corresponding members and 120 foreign associates. They are divided into two scientific groups: the mathematical and physical sciences and their applications, and the chemical, biological, geological and medical sciences and their applications.

Medals, awards and prizes

Each year, the Academy of Sciences distributes about 80 prizes. These include:

Grande Medaille, awarded annually, in rotation, in the respective disciplines of each department of the Academy, to a French or foreign scientist who has contributed to the development of science in a decisive manner.
Lalande Prize, awarded from 1802 to 1970, for excellence in astronomy
Waltz Prize, awarded from 1877 to 1970, in honor of achievement in astronomy
Richard Lounsbury Prize, shared with the National Academy of Sciences
Herbrand Prize, in mathematics and physics
Prize Paul Pascal, in chemistry
Bachelia Prize for outstanding contribution to mathematical modeling in the field of finance
Michel Mon T Bubble Prize for Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, awarded since 1977
Lecomte Prize, awarded annually since 1886, to recognize important discoveries in mathematics, physics, chemistry, natural history and medicine

People of the Academy

presidents

Kaznacheev

Permanent Secretaries

Mathematical Sciences

physical sciences

Connor (2005) missing The work is cited twice in the text, but the reference is not listed here. Incomplete links.
Crosland, Maurice P. (1992) Science under control: French Academy of Sciences, 1795-1914, Cambridge University Press, ISBN
Stéphane Schmitt, "Animal Studies and the Rise of Comparative Anatomy at the Paris Royal Academy of Sciences and Around in the Eighteenth Century," Science in Context 29(1), 2016, pp. 11-54.
Stroup, Alice (1987) Royal funding of the Parisian Académie Royale des Sciences In 1690, DIANE publishing house,

There is a popular legend that the French Academy of Sciences at the end of the 18th century refused to recognize the existence of meteorites and imposed a ban on their study, as a result of which many meteorite collections ended up in the trash. This legend is especially revered by alternative scientists who offer it as evidence of the inertia of "official science". However, in reality it was not so simple.

Until the beginning of the 18th century, the concept of matter in interplanetary space was not the subject of a wide scientific discussion. Meteors and rocks falling from the sky were considered atmospheric phenomena. At the same time, there were no hitches with an explanation of their nature: either something is burning in the upper layers of the atmosphere, or unusual electrical phenomena appear in the same layers - there was too little actual data to consider meteors an unsolvable mystery. Worse was the case with falling stones. A stone is a completely concrete, tangible object with a size, shape, color, temperature. And stones fell from the sky! More precisely, chronicles, legends, paintings of old masters told about their falls from the sky.

Some of the fallen stones for centuries have been preserved not only in memory. The first recorded fall of a meteorite that has survived to this day occurred in May 861. The heavenly stone fell in the Japanese province of Nogata and has been kept in the temple for more than 11 centuries. Its meteorite nature was reliably established in 1979. In Europe, the oldest fallen meteorite appeared much later. It collapsed on a wheat field near the Alsatian city of Ensisheim in November 1492 and, due to turbulent European history, survived much worse than its Japanese counterpart. For five centuries, pieces of it were so often chipped off that the initial mass of 135 kg was reduced to a 56-kilogram fragment, but this fragment survived and over the centuries reminded of the history of its appearance.

There were other falls after Ensisheim. For the time being, they rarely occurred, more precisely, they were rarely recorded due to the low population density and inefficient dissemination of news, which did not contribute to the systematization and analysis of information about stones. In addition, the baggage of physical and chemical knowledge in those years was small, and therefore the stones falling from the sky also did not seem to be something inexplicable. Well, they fall and fall. Maybe they are forced to take off into the sky by some terrestrial processes, maybe they are condensed up there, from some kind of vapor.

In the 18th century, it was time for a turning point. The development of the natural sciences pointed out more and more obtrusively that it was very difficult to weave a many-kilogram stone, and even an iron block out of fumes. The binding to volcanoes also became less convincing. But reports of rock falls kept coming!

At the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris, the need to understand the problem was ripe after the fall of a meteorite in Luce (France) in September 1768. The Academy created a special commission, which included the mineralogist Fougereau, the pharmacist Cadet and the chemist Lavoisier. Although Lavoisier was the youngest in this trio both in age and position, in the future he became more famous than his colleagues, and therefore the conclusions of the commission are mainly associated with his name. You can read in detail about the results of the commission's work. I want to emphasize the following: saying that “stones cannot fall from the sky”, the commission rejected the terrestrial (volcanic emissions) or atmospheric (condensation at high altitudes) origin of meteorites. And she was absolutely right about that! The commission could not reject their cosmic origin, since it was not seriously considered at that time.

The miscalculation of the commission was that, along with erroneous interpretations of falling stones, it rejected the very reality of the fall. However, it should be remembered that at that time there were no video recorders and the commission had to rely on the verbal testimony of not the most educated segments of the population, who, along with stories about falling stones, willingly told about other miracles. Lavoisier was a fierce fighter against all sorts of superstitions, and it is his zeal that in some texts explains why he slightly went too far in the analysis of falling stones.

But what does it mean in this case to "go too far"? The academy appointed a commission whose members analyzed the samples and testimonies and concluded that there were no falls, and the samples were the result of a lightning strike into the pyrite-rich sandstone. This conclusion turned out to be erroneous - it happens. The academy did not make any organizational conclusions on this matter, and studies of falling stones continued. Moreover, the commission's report itself did not immediately see the light of day. Lavoisier read it in April 1769, and it first appeared in print in brief form in 1772, with a note from the secretary of the Fushi Academy that the matter was worthy of further study.

Unfortunately, it cannot be said that the conclusions of French scientists turned out to be completely harmless. Given their authority, they did not need to make formal decisions. For example, cases were noted when people were silent about falling stones for fear of being ridiculed. It is possible that some collections of fallen stones were also affected, but this phenomenon was not widespread. More precisely, these acts of "enlightened vandalism" were written in 1819 by the "father of meteoritics" Ernst Chladni, mentioning the museums of Dresden, Vienna, Copenhagen, Verona and Bern. However, he apparently relied not on documentary evidence of vandalism, but on the notion that these museums must have contained meteorite specimens that are in fact absent. Already in the 20th century, John Burke in the wonderful book “Cosmic debris. Meteorites in history" gave evidence that at least some of these "disappeared" specimens were either in private collections or remained in the mentioned museums.

In any case, the report of Fougèreau, Cadet and Lavoisier did not slow down the development of meteoritics. In general, the explosive evolution of this science is very instructive. After centuries of very sluggish progress, it stood firmly on its feet in just ten years: in the last five years of the 18th century and in the first five years of the 19th century. Perhaps the development of mass communications played a role in this: if during the second half of the 18th century four or six falls were recorded per decade, then in the first 10 years of the 19th century there were already nineteen. By the end of the 18th century, there were more and more reports of a connection between falling stones and fireballs, there were data on the height of the appearance of fireballs and the speed of their movement, which were completely inconsistent with the idea of \u200b\u200btheir atmospheric origin.

The fact that it was Chladni who managed to put together all the available facts is probably not an accident. He was a lawyer by training and understood that if you have nothing but verbal testimony, you need to work with what you have, approaching the analysis of peasant stories not from the position of their physical reliability, but from the position of actual consistency with each other. Having collected historical and modern evidence, he was the first to say what, as it seems now, lay on the surface. The stones are falling. Rocks cannot form in the atmosphere. Stones often fall after fireballs appear. Fireballs are formed outside the dense layers of the atmosphere ... This means that the stones fall to Earth from space.

Chladni published a small book with these conclusions in 1794, and, as if to confirm them, several striking and well-documented falls occurred in the following years. Their crowning achievement was the L'Aigle meteorite, which fell in April 1803 in Normandy, a detailed and convincing description of which was compiled by the then young physicist Biot - and also on behalf of the Academy of Sciences (in that revolutionary time it was called differently). After that, practically no one doubted the reality of falling stones ...

P.S. ... Until February 15, 2013. Now the situation has turned in the opposite direction. For two months now, "academicians" have been saying that a space rock flew over Chelyabinsk, but there are many people who do not believe these statements. No, no, yes, and someone will say with a cunning squint: “But it was not a meteorite!” And then such fairy tales begin, in comparison with which the idea of \u200b\u200bthe condensation of stones from the air seems to be the height of sanity.