|
Jacques Étienne Montgolfier
(6 Jan 1745 - 1 Aug 1799)
French inventor and balloonist.
|
Science Quotes by Jacques Étienne Montgolfier (1 quote)
Sic Itur Ad Astra
So we go to the stars.
So we go to the stars.
— Jacques Étienne Montgolfier
Motto from his family coat-of-arms, given by Louis XVI (Dec 1783) to Pierre Montgolfier in recognition of his sons’ successful balloon flight. Illustration in the French magazine Contemporaries (8 Feb 1903), No. 539. Another coat-of-arms illustration is in Raoul De Cazenove, Premiers Voyages Aeriens (1887), 24. The motto comes from Virgil, who wrote “Sic itur ad astra” in the Aeneid, Book 9, line 641, spoken by Apollo to Aeneas’s young son. Above translation using Google translate. The motto is used elsewhere (including over the gate at Edinburgh Castle), and has various similar translations, such as “We journey to the stars.”
See also:
- 6 Jan - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Montgolfier's birth.
- More for Jacques Étienne Montgolfier on Today in Science History page.
- The Montgolfier Brothers and the Invention of Aviation, 1783-1784, by Charles Coulston Gillispie. - book suggestion.
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) -- 
