François Arago

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

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2. Scientific Life in France at the Time of Arago

   • James Lequeux

   Pages 1-21

3. The Life of Arago

   • James Lequeux

   Pages 23-55

4. The Nature of Light

   • James Lequeux

   Pages 57-87

5. The Velocity of Light

   • James Lequeux

   Pages 89-118

6. The Birth of Electromagnetism

   • James Lequeux

   Pages 119-147

7. Measuring the Earth

   • James Lequeux

   Pages 149-171

8. Arago and the Paris Observatory

   • James Lequeux

   Pages 173-202

9. Arago Astronomer

   • James Lequeux

   Pages 203-234

10. Arago Geophysicist and Meteorologist

    • James Lequeux

    Pages 235-258

11. Applied Physics

    • James Lequeux

    Pages 259-271

12. The Promotion of Science and Technique

    • James Lequeux

    Pages 273-304

13. Arago’s Legacy

    • James Lequeux

    Pages 305-316

14. Back Matter

    Pages 317-334

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François Arago, the first to show in 1810 that the surface of the Sun and stars is made of incandescent gas and not solid or liquid, was a prominent physicist of the 19th century. He used his considerable influence to help Fresnel, Ampere and others develop their ideas and make themselves known. This book covers his personal contributions to physics, astronomy, geodesy and oceanography, which are far from negligible, but insufficiently known. Arago was also an important and influential political man who, for example, abolished slavery in the French colonies. One of the last humanists, he had a very broad culture and range of interests. In parallel to his biography, this title also covers the spectacular progresses of science at the time of Arago, especially in France: the birth of physical optics, electromagnetism and thermodynamics. Francois Arago’s life is a fascinating epic tale that reads as a novel.

• 19th Century Astronomy
• 19th Century Geodesy
• 19th Century Meteorology
• 19th Century Oceanography
• 19th Century Physics
• François Arago Biography
• Nature Light
• Observatoire de Paris
• Paris Observatory
• Velocity Light

“This book has great potential utility for the historian of astronomy and amply succeeds in its effort to reorient Arago’s legacy around his central role as astronomer while showing the breadth that the role could entail. … this book can be thought of as a corrective to a historical memory that has written astronomy out of Arago’s legacy.” (Theresa Levitt, Journal for the History of Astronomy, Vol. 48 (2), 2017)

“François Arago is a fine, scholarly work, fully footnoted, with a detailed bibliography. The layout and exposition are clear, making it easy to locate specific researches. It is very well written and easy to read. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and learned much from it, and warmly recommend it to everyone interested in early-19th-Century astronomy and physics.” (Allan Chapman, The Observatory, Vol. 136 (1252), June, 2016)

• Paris Observatory, Paris, France

  James Lequeux

James Lequeux completed his PhD thesis in radioastronomy in 1962 and was an assistant, then associate, professor of physics and astronomy at Paris University until 1966. He was an Astronomer from 1966-1999 and an invited scientist at CalTech from 1968-1969. Dr. Lequeux was also the Director of the Marseilles Observatory from 1983-1988 and was Editor-in-Chief of the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics for 15 years. He retired in 1999 and then began work on the history of astronomy, a subject he presently writes about. Dr. Lequeux has published over 403 papers and five books, including The Interstellar Medium (Springer 2005) and Le Verrier: Magnificent and Detestable Astronomer (Springer 2013).