Charles Bossut

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Born: 11 Aug 1730 in Tartaras (near Rive de Gier), Rhône-et-Loire, France
Died: 14 Jan 1814 in Paris, France

Charles Bossut was educated at the Jesuit College of Lyon and became a student of d'Alembert. He was later to collaborate with d'Alembert on the mathematical part of the Encyclopédie.

Bossut was appointed professor of mathematics at Mézières. While at Mézières he transformed the quality and content of the courses. Among his students at Mézières were Borda and Coulomb.

After leaving Mézières Bossut became professor of hydrodynamics at the Louvre.

Bossut is famed for his textbooks. In particular he wrote Cours complet de mathematiques (1765) and Méchanique en général (1792).

He also won Academy prizes for his work on mechanics applied to ships and on resistance to planetary motion. It was a memoir of 1762 which won Bossut the prize of the Académie des Sciences for work on the resistance of fluids to the motion of planets.

In 1775 he participated with d'Alembert and Condorcet in experiments on fluid resistance.

Bossut was elected to the Académie des Sciences in 1768.