Cosserat, Eugène-Maurice-Pierre

BornAmiens, Somme, France, 4 March 1866

DiedToulouse, Haute-Garonne, France, 31 May 1931

In addition to his long tenure as director of the Toulouse Observatory, Eugène Cosserat was noted for his contributions as a geometer and in analytical mechanics, particularly in the theory of elasticity and surface deformation. Educated first in Amiens, Cosserat entered the École Normale Supérieure [ENS] in Paris at the age of only 17. He was appointed to the observatory in Toulouse in 1886 after his graduation from ENS. At Toulouse, Cosserat participated in an observatory routine that was typical of nineteenth-century professional astronomy, particularly in France, and included many hours of meridian observations and reductions of stellar and planetary positions. In the first part of his career, he also made physical observations of double stars, planets, and comets.

Cosserat’s main interests, however, were mathematical and theoretical rather than practical astronomy. His doctoral dissertation,...