Background
Henri Pitot was born on May 3, 1695, in Aramon, Languedoc, France. Pitot was the son of Antoine and Jeanne Julien Pitot. He was born into a patrician family of Aramon, a small town between Avignon and Nimes.
Henri Pitot (May 3, 1695 – December 27, 1771) was a French hydraulic engineer and the inventor of the pitot tube.
1740 - 1771
Royal Society, London, England, United Kingdom
In 1740 Pitot became a fellow of the Royal Society.
Royal Society, London, England, United Kingdom
In 1740 Pitot became a fellow of the Royal Society.
Henri Pitot
https://www.amazon.com/Theorie-Manoeuvre-Vaisseaux-Reduite-Pratique/dp/1169733298/?tag=2022091-20
1731
engineer inventor physicist scientist
Henri Pitot was born on May 3, 1695, in Aramon, Languedoc, France. Pitot was the son of Antoine and Jeanne Julien Pitot. He was born into a patrician family of Aramon, a small town between Avignon and Nimes.
Pitot’s scholarly career began inauspiciously. In his youth, he felt such extreme repugnance against any form of study that his parents, in despair, let him begin a military career, which lasted only briefly. His chance discovery of a geometry text in a Grenoble bookstore led him to return home and spend some three years studying mathematics and astronomy.
In September 1718 Pitot set out for Paris. He was introduced to Reaumur and won his goodwill. Reaumur advised him on his further studies and let him use his library, and through him, Pitot began, at first informally, the association with the Academie des Sciences that was to last more than twenty years.
In 1723 Pitot became Reaumur's assistant in the chemical laboratory of the Academy, a position that Pitot filled without neglecting his original interest in geometry. He was promoted adjoint mecanicien in 1724 and in 1733 became pensionnaire geometre. In 1740 Pitot accepted an invitation from the Estates General of Languedoc to supervise the draining of swamps in the lower parts of the province. After the successful completion of that task, he became director of public works of one of the three districts of the province and superintendent of the Canal du Languedoc (now Canal du Midi). He lived in Montpellier until his retirement in 1756, when he returned to Aramon.
Pitot’s scientific career was both theoretical and practical. During his two decades at the Paris Academy he published a variety of papers dealing with astronomy, geometry, and mechanics, especially hydraulics. The papers offered competent solutions to minor problems, arrived at by elementary mathematics, and without lasting significance. From 1740 to 1756, he was active as a civil engineer. At least two significant engineering projects of his survive - the road bridge attached to the first level of the Pont du Gard, the famous Roman aqueduct near Nimes, and the aqueduct that supplies drinking water to the city of Montpellier.
Pitot’s only book, La theorie de la manoeuvre des vaisseaux (Paris, 1731), dealt with a subject of much contemporary interest (books on it had been published in 1689 by Bernard Renau, in 1714 by Johann I Bernoulli, and in 1749 by Leonhard Euler), and was well-received; it was translated into English and earned him membership in the Royal Society of London.
Henri Pitot's major achievement was in his invention of the tube de Pitot (pitot tube) in 1732, which was a device for measuring the speed of fluids, and which is still used in the 21st century for measuring the speed of aircraft and ships. He developed the idea when tasked with measuring the water flow of the river Seine (which passes through Paris).
Also, Pitot worked as an engineer for Languedoc region, creating some remarkable projects, such as draining of swamplands along with the river courses and creating anti-flooding barriers along the major rivers of the region, including the Gardon, Vidourle, Orb, Ardèche and Rhône rivers.
In 1743 Henri Pitot built the Pont Pitot attached to the Roman aqueduct Pont du Gard. He also built the St-Clement Aqueduct in Montpellier and restored the Roman bridge of Sommières and the Medieval arched bridge at Pont-Saint-Esprit.
The Pitot theorem of plane geometry is named after him and Rue Henri Pitot in Carcassonne is named in his honor.
In 1724, Pitot became a member of the French Academy of Sciences, and in 1740 a fellow of the Royal Society.
In 1738 Pitot married Marie-Leonine de Saballoua; their only surviving child, a son, was later attorney general in Montpellier.
