Speaker
Description
From Giovanni Domenico (1625-1712) to Jean-Dominique (1748-1845), four generations of Cassini succeeded each other at the Paris Observatory from 1669 to 1794. Following the thread of the map-making project proposed by Abbot Jean Picard (1620-1682), we will consider the progressive association of the Cassinis with the general triangulation of France. In particular we’ll see how Picard's project envisages contributing to the study of the “figure” of the Earth, a subject that has been little analyzed by historians -- with the exception of the debate that saw Cassinians and Newtonians opposing each other. In the long run, it will be seen that although knowledge by geometric triangulation of the Earth's meridians gradually pushes away the possibility of establishing an “exact” value of the Earth's figure, its investigation leads to an essential development of other forms of scientific knowledge, such as the instrumentation and metrology.
