Person: Puissant, Louis
Louis Puissant was a French mathematician and geographer who is best remembered for his invention of a new map projection.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Louis trained as a land-surveyor but felt that he did not know enough mathematics to carry out this work to the standard that he wished, so decided that he must study geometry.
- Delambre and Méchain had been measuring the meridian since 1792 and this project was still not complete when Puissant was carrying out triangulations using similar methods.
- Puissant was fascinated by this major scientific project, and wrote an book on the problem of the shape of the earth.
- Puissant had risen to the rank of lieutenant-colonel by the time he left the army.
- On 3 November 1828 Puissant was elected to the Academy of Sciences to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Laplace in the previous year.
- Puissant wrote on geodesy, the shape of the earth and spherical trigonometry.
Born 22 September 1769, Champagne, France. Died 10 January 1843, Paris, France.
View full biography at MacTutor
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
