Background
Marie Henri Andoyer was born on October 1, 1862 in Paris, France. His father, Louis Jules Andoyer, was a chief clerk at the Bank of France. His mother was called Marie Antionette Doubling.
Marie Henri Andoyer (October 1, 1862 in Paris – June 12, 1929) was a French astronomer and mathematician.
The lycée Saint-Louis is a post-secondary school located in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, in the Latin Quarter. Andoyer's early education came at the lycée St Louis, a secondary school located in the Latin Quarter of Paris.
The main entrance to the ENS on Rue d'Ulm. The school moved into its current premises in 1847. Andoyer attended the École normale supérieure, one of the most highly regarded and prestigious higher education establishments outside of the public university system framework.
The lycée Saint-Louis is a post-secondary school located in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, in the Latin Quarter. Andoyer's early education came at the lycée St Louis, a secondary school located in the Latin Quarter of Paris.
The main entrance to the ENS on Rue d'Ulm. The school moved into its current premises in 1847. Andoyer attended the École normale supérieure, one of the most highly regarded and prestigious higher education establishments outside of the public university system framework.
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https://www.amazon.com/Nouvelles-trigonom%C3%A9triques-fondamentales-naturelles-triconom%C3%A9triques/dp/B00AU09ZH4/?tag=2022091-20
Astronomer mathematician scientist
Marie Henri Andoyer was born on October 1, 1862 in Paris, France. His father, Louis Jules Andoyer, was a chief clerk at the Bank of France. His mother was called Marie Antionette Doubling.
Andoyer’s interest in manipulating numbers began very early; his father’s work as chief clerk at the Banque de France may have influenced him. His early education came at the lycée St Louis, a secondary school located in the Latin Quarter of Paris. He went on in 1881 to attend the École normale supérieure, one of the most highly regarded and prestigious higher education establishments outside of the public university system framework. He graduated at the top of his class in mathematical science at the École Normale Supérieure in 1884 and wrote his doctoral thesis (1887) on the theory of intermediate orbits as applied to the moon.
After the graduation from the École Normale Supérieure in 1884 and writing his doctoral thesis in 1887, Andoyer took his first job in Toulouse, where besides continuing his theoretical studies he worked at the telescope, preparing a photographic map of the sky. In “Formules générales de la méchanique céleste” he showed how to solve the general equations of motion to any desired degree of accuracy in terms of trigonometric functions alone.
In 1892 Andoyer returned to Paris, where he began as a maître de conférence at the Sorbonne and became a full professor in 1903. Here he worked on special cases of the three-body problem, showing, for example, how to use the Lagrangian libration points (null points in a two-body gravitational field where a third body, of negligible mass, can remain more or less indefinitely) to make the periodic terms of the solution independent of time.
Next he attacked the problem of asteroids that, like Hecuba, move almost exactly twice as fast as Jupiter and hence are strongly perturbed. There followed an analysis of n bodies close to equilibrium points, which has been applied to problems of the general stability of the solar system.
In 1910 Andoyer became a member of the Bureau des Longitudes, where he succeeded to the editorship of Connaissance des temps, the French nautical almanac. During World War 1, with most of the staff mobilized, he prepared many of the ephemerides himself. His Nouvelles tables trigonométriques fondamentales, prepared as an aid to computers, have values to fifteen decimal places. He must indeed have been, in the words of one of his students, un calculateur formidable.
Andoyer was very dedicated to his teaching and pupils, publishing many of his lectures for their benefit. His small publication, Théorie de la Lune would be recommended to anyone who wished to introduce themselves to the complexities of the moon's motion. Moreover, between 1911 and 1918, he was responsible for four large volumes of mathematical tables (Tables of logarithms of Trigonometric Functions to 14 decimals (1911) and three volumes of Tables of the natural Trigonometric Functions to 15 decimals (1915, 1916, 1918)). He further did the computation for tables of addition and subtraction of logarithms, and also the computation for those of logarithms of numbers to a large number of decimal places. It's claimed that for several years, he had dedicated three hours per day to this work.
He was made a member of the Academy of Sciences in 1919 and he was also offered the directorship of the Paris Observatory, a role which he declined.
Andoyer died in Paris on 12th June 1929.
Andoyer taught astronomy at the Sorbonne for thirty-seven years. His research dealt with celestial mechanics: perturbation theory, special cases of the three-body and of the n-body problem, and the motions of the moon. He developed special methods for use in computing ephemerides, the most elaborate one - for the moon - approximating E. W. Brown’s definitive treatment but at a fraction of the labor.
In recognition of his remarkable achievements in science, he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences in 1919. He was also awarded an Officer of the Legion of Honour (the second of five orders of distinction, which required eight years of service as Knight, which required twenty-five years of professional activity with "eminent merits").
On the 27th of May 1889, Henri Andoyer married Céleste Antoinette Marguerite Perisse in Toulouse. He had three children of which two were sons, one a daughter. The eldest of the sons, Firmin Marie Raphäel Andoyer, was killed during the First World War. His daughter, Henriette Juliette Andoyer, married the mathematician Pierre Humbert on 28th April 1914.
