Person: Harlay, Marie-Jeanne Amélie
Amélie Harlay was a French astronomer who published navigational tables and catalogues of stars.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Jérôme Lalande referred to Michel and Amélie as his nephew and niece.
- Amélie and Michel were collaborating before their marriage; Michel was an expert observer and Amélie undertook large amounts of computational work which she was able to do with great accuracy and speed.
- Despite the remarkable amount of work contributed by Amélie, she was not listed as an author on any of the publications to which she contributed, even those which consisted mostly of tables she had calculated.
- Significantly, the tables are the work of Marie Jeanne Amélie Harlay Lefrançois de Lalande ...
- The tables were originally meant to be completed by a male colleague, Nicolas Maurice Chompré, but his work proved too slow on account of other obligations, and so Amélie created the horary tables.
- Despite her creation of the majority of this book, Amélie is not named on the title page.
- When Jérôme received an award for the book, he dedicated it to Amélie, hoping to provide her with a modicum of credit.
- Amélie Lefrançais de Lalande's work was also incorporated into Connaissance des temps Ⓣ(Knowledge of the times) which Lalande edited from 1794 until his death in 1807.
- We explained above that Amélie was fortunate since Lalande was a supporter of women astronomers.
- When we wrote our first biography of Amélie Harlay in 2008, we hoped to be able to find more information and improve our biography at a future date.
- We have now (2021) rewritten our biography, corrected it in line with the latest research, added many more references, and given further details of Amélie Harlay's life and work.
- As a woman, Amélie Lefrançais could not receive any such honours.
Born 1768, Paris, France. Died 8 November 1832, Paris, France.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Astronomy, Women
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
- Github:
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- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
