Background
Barnabé Brisson was born on October 11, 1777, in Lyon, France, the son of Antoine-François Brisson, an inspector of commerce and manufacture.
École Polytechnique, Route de Saclay, 91128 Palaiseau, France
On December 11, 1794, Barnabé Brisson began to study at the newly created École Centrale des Travaux Publics (now École Polytechnique) which had opened that year. He graduated from the École Polytechnique in 1796.
École des ponts ParisTech, 6-8 Avenue Blaise Pascal, 77420 Champs-sur-Marne, France
On November 11, 1793, he entered the École des Ponts et Chaussées (now École des Ponts ParisTech) in Paris and, on December 11, 1794, he began to study at the newly created École Centrale des Travaux Publics (now École Polytechnique) which had opened that year. Barnabé Brisson then returned to the École des Ponts et Chaussées on December 21, 1796. He completed his professional training at the École des Ponts et Chaussées in May 1798.
École Polytechnique, Route de Saclay, 91128 Palaiseau, France
On December 11, 1794, Barnabé Brisson began to study at the newly created École Centrale des Travaux Publics (now École Polytechnique) which had opened that year. He graduated from the École Polytechnique in 1796.
École des ponts ParisTech, 6-8 Avenue Blaise Pascal, 77420 Champs-sur-Marne, France
On November 11, 1793, he entered the École des Ponts et Chaussées (now École des Ponts ParisTech) in Paris and, on December 11, 1794, he began to study at the newly created École Centrale des Travaux Publics (now École Polytechnique) which had opened that year. Barnabé Brisson then returned to the École des Ponts et Chaussées on December 21, 1796. He completed his professional training at the École des Ponts et Chaussées in May 1798.
educator engineer mathematician scientist
Barnabé Brisson was born on October 11, 1777, in Lyon, France, the son of Antoine-François Brisson, an inspector of commerce and manufacture.
Brisson studied at the Collège Oratorien de Juilly. On November 11, 1793, he entered the École des Ponts et Chaussées (now École des Ponts ParisTech) in Paris and, on December 11, 1794, he began to study at the newly created École Centrale des Travaux Publics which had opened that year. In 1795, while Brisson was a student there, the École Centrale des Travaux Publics was renamed the École Polytechnique.
Barnabé Brisson graduated from the École Polytechnique in 1796 and then returned to the École des Ponts et Chaussées on December 21 of the same year. He completed his professional training at the École des Ponts et Chaussées in May 1798.
After graduation, Brisson was named as a civil engineer in the Doubs department, in eastern France near the Swiss border, on May 11, 1798. The Doubs department had been created, along with 82 other departments, in 1790 during the French Revolution.
After sixteen months working in Doubs, Brisson was conscripted into the army on September 12, 1799. He served for less than a year before returning to his duties as a civil engineer, this time taking up a position in Besançon on July 21, 1800. He specialized in the design and construction of ship canals; in particular, he applied descriptive geometry to problems of canals. In 1802 he and his colleague Pierre-Louis Dupuis-Torcy presented a brilliant memoir based on applying methods of descriptive geometry to the determination of crest fines and of thalwegs, as well as establishing the course of the canals.
Between 1802 and 1809 Brisson collaborated in the construction of the Canal de St. Quentin, and then in the extension of the dikes and canals of the department of l’Escaut (until 1814).
Later in 1820, on 26 July, Brisson was appointed a professor of stereometry and construction at the École des Ponts et Chaussées (now École des Ponts ParisTech). In addition, he became an inspector of the École des Ponts et Chaussées on May 1, 1821. Three years later, he became secretary of the Conseil Royal des Ponts et Chaussées (now General Council of the Environment and Sustainable Development) on April 28, 1824, and, on the same day, Divisional Inspector.
Brisson remained one of Monge’s favorite disciples, and his marriage to Anne-Constance Huart, the latter’s niece, strengthened his admiration and affection for the famous geometer. In 1820 he edited the fourth edition of Monge’s Géométrie descriptive and finished off the work with two previously unpublished chapters on the theory of shadows and on perspective, which he revised with great care. But his favorite field of study was the theory of partial differential equations. Brisson drew up two important reports on this subject. One was read before the Académie des Sciences by Biot, his fellow student at the École Polytechnique and his brother-in-law. This paper was published in 1808. The other was read in 1823 and was not published. The main idea in these reports was the application of functional calculus, through symbols, to the solution of certain kinds of linear differential equations and of linear equations with finite differences.
The 1823 report was the object of lively discussion in 1825 before the Academy and was approved of by Cauchy, who, although he had some reservations about the validity of some of the symbols used and the equations obtained, emphasized the elegance of the method and the importance of the objects to which they were applied. Cauchy followed the way opened by Brisson, who thus became one of those who developed the methods of functional calculus.
In 1808, Barnabé Brisson married Anne-Constance Huart de l'Enclos, the niece of Gaspard Monge.