Marc-Auguste Pictet facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Marc-Auguste Pictet
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| Born | 23 July 1752 |
| Died | 19 April 1825 (aged 72) Geneva, Switzerland
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| Nationality | Genevan, then Swiss from 1815 |
| Alma mater | Academy of Geneva |
| Occupation | scientific journalist |
Marc-Auguste Pictet (born July 23, 1752 – died April 19, 1825) was a smart Swiss scientist. He was known for writing about science and doing cool experiments. People called him a "natural philosopher," which meant he studied how the world worked through science.
Pictet's biggest contribution was helping to edit the science part of a magazine called Bibliothèque Britannique. This magazine, published from 1796 to 1815, shared new ideas and inventions from Great Britain with people across Europe. His own science work focused on physical science, especially how heat works (called calorimetry). He also studied astronomy (stars), geology (Earth's rocks), meteorology (weather), and technology like making accurate clocks and fancy pottery.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Marc-Auguste Pictet was born in Geneva, which was then its own country, on July 23, 1752. His dad, Charles Pictet, was a soldier who worked for the Netherlands.
Marc-Auguste went to the Academy of Geneva to study science and law. He became a lawyer in 1774. After spending a year in England (1775–1776), he became an assistant at the Geneva Observatory. This is where he started to get really interested in weather and making maps.
Exploring the Alps
In 1778, Pictet went on his first trip around the famous Mont-Blanc mountain with his teacher, Horace-Bénédict de Saussure. Later, in 1786, Pictet took over from Saussure as the professor of natural philosophy at the Academy of Geneva.
Scientific Discoveries
Around this time, Pictet helped Saussure with an experiment that showed something amazing. They proved the existence of what we now call infra-red radiation. This is a type of energy that we feel as heat, but can't see.
Pictet's Experiment on Cold
In a follow-up experiment, which Count Rumford later called 'Pictet's experiment,' Pictet made his own discovery. He used two curved mirrors to focus the energy from a flask of ice onto a thermometer. He found that the effects of cold could be reflected in the same way as heat. This showed that cold isn't just the absence of heat, but something that can be focused and studied. He published his findings about heat in a book called Essai sur le feu in 1790. He also started to agree with Lavoisier's new ideas about chemistry.
Building Scientific Connections
In 1791, Pictet was one of the twelve people who started the Geneva Society of Physics and Natural History. This was a group for scientists to share their work.
The Bibliothèque Britannique
In 1796, Pictet, his younger brother Charles, and his friend Frédéric-Guillaume Maurice started a monthly magazine. It was called Bibliothèque Britannique. This magazine translated important science papers from English scientists like Davy and Wollaston. Besides science and technology, the magazine also shared British literature and articles about farming. After 1815, the magazine started including articles from other European countries and changed its name to Bibliothèque Universelle de Genève.
Observatory and Weather Stations
As the second director of the Geneva Observatory (from 1790 to 1819), Pictet helped set up a meteorological station to study the weather. In 1817, he even created another weather station high up on the Great St. Bernard mountain in the Alps.
In 1815, when Geneva joined the Swiss Confederation, Pictet helped create the Swiss Society of Natural Sciences.
Global Recognition
Pictet was a member of many important science groups. He joined the Royal Society of London in 1791 and the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1796. He was also a member of the Académie des Sciences in France and the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Germany. He knew and wrote to hundreds of scientists all over Europe and even in the United States. In 1795, Thomas Jefferson wrote to President George Washington saying that Pictet and his friends were "standing foremost among the literati of Europe." This means they were considered some of the smartest people in Europe.
Legacy and Honors
Since 1990, the Geneva Society of Physics and Natural History has given out a special award. It's called the Marc-Auguste Pictet Prize. This award celebrates people who study the history of science. They also give a medal each year to a scholar who is an expert in the history of science.
In 1935, two astronomers, Blagg and Müller, named a crater on the Moon after him to honor his work.
Family Life
In 1766, Marc-Auguste Pictet married Susanne Francoise Turrettini. They had three daughters: Dorothée Marie Anne, Caroline, and Albertine. Dorothée Marie Anne later married a Swiss politician named Isaac Vernet.
