|
Edme Mariotte
(c. 1620 - 12 May 1684)
French physicist and plant physiologist whose experiments and discoveries ranged across areas of science such as physics, mechanics, hydraulics, optics, plant physiology, meteorology, surveying, and research methodology
|
Science Quotes by Edme Mariotte (2 quotes)
Among our sensations it is difficult not to confuse what comes from the part of objects with what comes from the part of our senses. … Supposing this, one clearly sees that it is not easy to say much about colors,… and that all one can expect in such a difficult subject is to give some general rules and to derive from them consequences that can be of some use in the arts and satisfy somewhat the natural desire we have to render account of everything that appears to us.
— Edme Mariotte
'De la Nature des Couleurs', collected in Oeuvres (1717), 196–197.
The ratio of the expanded air to the volume of that left above the mercury before the experiment is the same as that of twenty-eight inches of mercury, which is the whole weight of the atmosphere, to the excess of twenty-eight inches over the height at which [the mercury] remains after the experiment. This makes known sufficiently for one to take it as a certain rule of nature that air is condensed in proportion to the weight with which it is charged.
— Edme Mariotte
'De la Nature l’Air', collected in Oeuvres (1717), 152.
Quotes by others about Edme Mariotte (1)
Mariotte took everything from me, … as can attest those of the Academy, M. du Hamel, M. Gallois, and the registers. [He took] the machine, the experiment on the rebound of glass balls, the experiment of one or more balls pushed together against of line of equal balls, the theorems that I had published. He should have mentioned me. I told him that one day, and he could not respond.
Written in a sketch of an introduction to a treatise on impact never completed. As quoted in Charles Coulston Gillespie (ed.), Michael S. Mahoney, 'Marriote, Edme', Dictionary of Scientific Biogrgaphy (1974), Vol. 9, 115, citing Christiaan Huygens, 'De moto corporum ex percussione', collected in Oeuvers, Vol. 16, (1929), 209. The theorems were given parenthetically as in Philisophical Transactions (1668) and Journal des Sçavans (1669). Through correspondence, Huygens and Mariotte knew of each others’ work. Huygens felt slighted that Mariotte gave no mention of him as a source in a paper written by Mariotte on the same subject. Whether actual plagiarism or merely oversight remains open.
See also:
- 12 May - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Mariotte's death.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
