Born Paris, France, 18 February 1677
Died Thury near Clermont, (Oise), France, 15 April 1756
Jacques Cassini, who was mainly an observationalist, was a fervent Cartesian who fought hard to reconcile the facts of observation with the theory of vortices. He was a lukewarm Copernican and never admitted Newtonian gravitation. His main areas of interest were the tides, the planets and their satellites, and the observation and theory of comets. His literary output was vast, but he is chiefly known for his Élémens d'Astronomie (Paris, 1740).
Cassini was the son of Giovanni Cassini and Geneviève de Laistre. After a period of study at home in the Paris Observatory, Jacques entered the Collège Mazarin. He soon turned to astronomy and was admitted as a student to the Académie royale des sciences (1694).
Cassini accompanied his father on a journey through Italy in 1695, making numerous scientific observations, taking part in geodetic work, and helping to restore the meridian of the Church of San...
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Grant, Robert (1852). History of Physical Astronomy, from the Earliest Ages to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century. London: Henry G. Bohn. (Reprinted in 1966. New York: Johnson Reprint Corp.)
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Baum, R. (2007). Cassini, Jacques. In: Hockey, T., et al. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7_245
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