Institutions and individuals around the 1800s

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to provide some social, institutional and personal background against which the technical concerns of the six following chapters are set. First, I deal with the principal institutions, in the forms in which they were set up around 1795 and developed up to the late 1800s. The mathematical and physical classe of the Institut is the main topic of §2.2, the Ecole Polytechnique similarly dominates §2.3, while §2.4 deals with the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées and the Ecole Normale and then with various other educational institutions. In §2.5 the emphasis switches to five individuals—Lagrange, Laplace, Lacroix, de Prony and Legendre-whose work was not only of importance around 1800 but also carried influence well into the 19th century; two figures, Coulomb and Monge, whose work bore especially on engineering; and a quintet of minor figures. Finally, in §2.6 a survey is provided of the various generations active in the 1800s, and also of the new emerging profession of science: Figure 262.1 is a schematic outline of the various institutions described, and Figure 263.1 a selective map of the parts of Paris where they were located and where most of the savants normally lived.