◀ ▲ ▶History / 18th-century / Person: Plana, Giovanni Antonio Amedeo
Person: Plana, Giovanni Antonio Amedeo
Giovanni Plana was an Italian mathematician who worked on astronomy, integrals, elliptic functions, heat, electrostatics and geodesy.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Plana, although a young man at the time, was certainly one of those who embraced this new way.
- In 1800 Plana entered the École Polytechnique in Paris.
- Fourier, like Lagrange, was greatly impressed by Plana's abilities and he tried to arrange for him to be appointed to the chair of mathematics at the school of artillery at Grenoble.
- However, Fourier failed in his attempt on behalf of Plana, so he tried again, this time to have Plana appointed to the chair of mathematics at the school of artillery in the Piedmont which was located part in Turin and part in Alessandria.
- This attempt was successful and Plana returned to Italy in 1803 to take up this post.
- As a consequence Piedmont was given to France so Plana found himself in France again without making a move! In 1811 Lagrange recommended Plana for the chair of astronomy at the University of Turin, and Plana was appointed to the position.
- Topics Plana worked on, in addition to astronomy, were integrals, elliptic functions, heat, electrostatics and geodesy.
- Plana had already worked with Francesco Carlini on geodesy, and the director of the observatory in Milan suggested to Plana that he might collaborate with Carlini on problems relating to the motion of the moon.
- In 1820 the prize was awarded to Carlini and Plana and to Damoiseau by a committee of which Laplace was a member.
- But Laplace strongly criticised the Carlini-Plana approach to lunar theory.
- After the exchanges, public and private, between Carlini-Plana and Laplace, the latter concluded that the results of the Italian astronomers and those arrived at by Damoiseau following the method of Laplace's 'Mecanique céleste' were fairly close, and that the purpose of the Académie in establishing the prize had been reasonably fulfilled.
- Plana fell out with Carlini and Carlini withdrew from the collaboration.
- Plana continued with the work on his own and published Théorie du mouvement de la lune in Turin in 1832.
- By this time Plana was astronomer royal, and he went on to become a hereditary baron in 1844 and a senator in 1848.
- Finally let us return to talk a little of Plana's association with the Turin Academy of Sciences.
- Another famous scientist who interacted with Plana was Babbage.
Born 6 November 1781, Voghera (now Italy). Died 20 January 1864, Turin, Italy.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Astronomy, Origin Italy
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
- Github:
-
- 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
