Background
Édouard Albert Roche was born on October 17, 1820, in Montpellier, France.
Édouard Albert Roche (17 October 1820 – 27 April 1883) was a French astronomer and mathematician, who is best known for his work in the field of celestial mechanics. His name was given to the concepts of the Roche sphere, Roche limit, and Roche lobe. He also was the author of works in meteorology.
Édouard Albert Roche was a recipient of the Legion of Honour.
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1885
Astronomer geophysicist mathematician meteorologist scientist
Édouard Albert Roche was born on October 17, 1820, in Montpellier, France.
Roche studied at the University of Montpellier, receiving his Doctor of Science in 1844.
After getting his Doctor of Science degree in 1844, Roche served in the Faculté des Sciences starting in 1849. While in Paris for three years in order to increase his knowledge of analysis and celestial mechanics, he engaged in scientific discussions with Cauchy and Le Verrier. Arago, who had taken notice of Roche’s observations of the solar eclipse of 1842, welcomed him at the Paris observatory as an independent student. In 1849 Roche was appointed chargé de cours at the Faculté des Sciences of Montpellier, and in 1852 he was named professor of pure mathematics. Roche had suffered from delicate health since his youth, and, exhausted by work, he was obliged to take a leave of absence from Montpellier in 1881.
Roche’s investigations concerned primarily the internal structure and form of the free surface of celestial bodies, a subject he had treated in his doctoral dissertation. The law of the differential variation of terrestrial density, which he proposed in 1848, is still used. Roche studied the equilibrium figures of a rotating fluid mass subjected, in addition to internal forces, to an external attractive force or to a central attractive force: Roche’s limit, the maximum value that the distance of a satellite imposes on its diameter (stated in 1849), is an essential criterion in cosmogony. He also considered the form of cometary envelopes and analyzed the effect of a repulsive force originating in the sun. The shape of comets was thus correctly explained in 1859, before the physical discovery of radiation pressure.
The elements permitting the study of two fundamental problems were now conjoined. In 1873 Roche undertook a critical examination of Laplace’s cosmogonic hypothesis, which had never been the subject of thorough mathematical study. Roche provided important additions to it in order to render it coherent. In 1881 he analyzed hypotheses concerning the structure of the earth and was led to propose and study the first “earth model” with a solid nucleus.
Roche was elected a corresponding member of the Académie des Sciences in December 1873.
Physical Characteristics: Roche had suffered from delicate health since his youth and died of an inflammation of the lungs later in his life.