Biot

Biot, JEAN BAPTISTE, a distinguished French physicist and astronomer, born at Paris, April 21, 1774. He entered the artillery, but forsook the service for science, and in 1800 became professor of Physics in the Collège de France. Along with Arago (q.v.), he was (1806) sent to Spain to carry out the measuring of a degree of the meridian, and in 1817 he visited England, and went as far north as the Shetland Islands, in order to make observations along the line of the British arc of meridian. His most valuable contributions to science are on the polarisation of light, for which he received the Rumford gold medal in 1840; his researches into ancient astronomy are also very valuable. Among the latter may be mentioned his Recherches sur l'Ancienne Astronomie Chinoise (1840) and Études sur l'Astronomie Indienne (1862). His works on physics are still esteemed; the 3d ed. of his Traité Élémentaire d'Astronomie Physique (5 vols. 1841–57) was translated into English. In 1849 Biot was made a Commander of the Legion of Honour; he was also a member of the French Academy, and of most of the learned societies in Europe. He died at Paris, February 3, 1862.—His son, EDOUARD CONSTANT, a distinguished Chinese scholar, was born at Paris, July 2, 1803. He was at first a railway engineer; but his health failing, he retired from the public service, and devoted his leisure to the study of Chinese and the history of the social organisation of the Celestial empire. He was elected a member of the Academy in 1847, and died March 12, 1850. He wrote a Dictionnaire de l'Empire Chinois (1842), and a multitude of Mémoires on Chinese subjects.