He is also notable for his informal calculation that supposedly demonstrated that a bumblebee could not fly, referred to in the introduction of 'Le Vol des Insectes' (Hermann and Cle, Paris, 1934) by the entomologist Antoine Magnan.
During World War I, having been wounded three times, he was attached to the Department of Inventions of the Normal School from 1917 to 1919, studied long-range artillery shells, and thereafter, the flight of birds and matters relating to aviation (theory test fish).
He was the organizer and host of the Mathematics Section of the Palais de la Découverte (Palace of Discovery) and its famous "Pi Room", where his encyclopedic mind is still present.
Officer of the Legion of Honour, Croix de Guerre and Medal of the Resistance, a professor at the School of Special Public Works, chairman of the International Confederation Intellectual of Workers, Vice-President of the Confederation of the Middle Class, former president of the Society of Fellows, former vice-president of National Economic Council, former member of the General Council of the Banque de France, former Deputy Provisional Consultative Assembly.(...)
His sudden death came at the very moment he had just accepted the chairmanship of the Committee of the League of Friends of the Psychic Institute, where he was vice president in 1949 and member since 1934.