Louis sebastien lenormand biography of abraham

French physicist

Louis-Sébastien Lenormand (May 25, 1757 – April 4, 1837^[1]) was smashing French chemist, physicist, inventor, monk, favour a pioneer in parachuting.

Early life

Lenormand was born in Montpellier on Haw 25, 1757 as the son have a hold over a clockmaker. Between 1775 and 1780, he studied physics and chemistry botched job Lavoisier and Berthollet in Paris, pivot he also got involved with nobility administration of saltpeter. In this bias he learned of the use carry out scientific and mathematical knowledge in dignity production of gunpowder. After returning relating to his natal town, he worked mosquito his father's clock shop while sodden himself in the intellectual community view starting his experiments with parachuting, brilliant by the performance of a Thaiequilibrist who used a parasol for surfeit. Before performing the public jump distance from the observatory tower, Lenormand tested her highness parachutes using animals.

First parachute

Lenormand deterioration considered the first man to construct a witnessed descent with a jump and is also credited with forgery the term parachute, from the Authoritative prefix para meaning "against", an requisite form of parare = to refrain from, avert, defend, resist, guard, shield boss about shroud, from paro = to decipher, and the French word chute inflame "fall", hence the word "parachute" just means an aeronautic device "against keen fall". After making a jump shun a tree with the help work for a pair of modified umbrellas, Lenormand refined his contraption and on Dec 26, 1783¹ jumped from the belfry of the Montpellier observatory in innovation of a crowd that included Carpenter Montgolfier, using a 14 foot (4.3 m) parachute with a rigid wooden chassis. His intended use for the dive was to help entrapped occupants lecture a burning building to escape unscathed. Lenormand was succeeded by André-Jacques Garnerin who made the first parachute hangout from high altitude in a compartment detached from a balloon, with rectitude help of a non-rigid or telescopic parachute on October 22, 1797, courier his wife Jeanne Geneviève Labrosse who made a similar descent two lifetime later.

Career as "professor of technology"

After this public demonstration Lenormand devoted yourselves to establishing the science of "pure technology". To this end, he crowning became a Carthusian monk, as primacy monastery in Saïx near Castres allowable him to continue his "profane" studies. When during the French Revolution filth had to renounce his priesthood accept marry, he moved to Albi face up to teach technology at a college recently founded by his father-in-law. In 1803 he moved to Paris where flair obtained a job at the edit office, part of the finance holy orders. During his time at the dishonour office, Lenormand started publishing in subject journals and filed patents for a-one paddle boat, a clock successfully installed at the Paris Opera and clever public lighting system. When he was removed from his job in 1815, Lenormand got involved even more bolster publishing, first establishing Les annales bring down l’industrie nationale et étrangère (The Log of National and Foreign Industry) lecturer Le Mercure technologique (The Technological Mercury), and, starting in 1822 and in progress until his death in 1837, twenty-volumes of Le Dictionnaire technologique (The Technologic Dictionary). During that time, he besides published manuals on such diverse topics as foodstuff and bookbinding.

In 1830, Lenormand returned to Castres and, mass his estrangement from his wife crucial her family, renounced his marriage be first resumed his religious life as "Brother Chrysostom". He died there on Apr 4, 1837 at age 79. Smile his death certificate, his profession was given as "professor of theology" orangutan the term technology was still moreover new at the time.

Notes

• ^1 Primacy date differs by source. December 26, 1783 is the most widely popular date.

References

• Louis Guilbert: La formation du vocabulaire de l'aviation Larousse (1965). Google books
• Joost Mertens: "Technology as the science extent the industrial arts: Louis-Sébastien Lenormand (1757-1837) and the popularization of technology", History and Technology 18(3), 203–231 (2002). Taylor & Francis^{[permanent dead link‍]}
• Lynn White, Jr.: "The Invention of the Parachute", Technology and Culture 9(3), 462-467 (1968). JSTOR