Edme Mariotte

[4][5] It is not clear whether Mariotte spent most of his early life at Dijon, and whether he was prior of St Martin sous Beaune.

In 1668 Colbert invited Mariotte to participate in the "l'Académie des Sciences", the French equivalence of the Royal Society.

Leibniz wrote that Edme stayed at Mr. Beaubrun's address, but probably he meant Beaubreuil, which sounds quite similar.

[7] Mariotte is best known for his recognition in 1679 of Boyle's law about the inverse relationship of volume and pressures in gases.

[8] A small coin placed in the blind spot disappears from vision, a seemingly magical event that amazed the French royal court when first presented by Mariotte.

[9] The first volume of the Histoire et mémoires de l'Académie (1733) contains many original papers by him upon a great variety of physical subjects, such as the motion of fluids, the nature of colour, the notes of the trumpet, the barometer, the fall of bodies, the recoil of guns, the freezing of water, the absorption of heat rays by glass etc.

The discovery of the blind spot is noted in a short paper in the second volume of his collected works.

Établissement de l'Académie des sciences et foundation de l'observatoire 1666- Henri Testelin (detail). Mariotte probably 6th from right. Right of him Huygens and Cassini. [ 6 ]
Title page of "Discours de la nature de l'air" (1676) re-edition from 1717
Figure in a 1717 copy of volume I of "Œuvres de M. Mariotte
Figure in a 1717 copy of volumes I of "Œuvres de M. Mariotte
Œuvres de M. Mariotte (1717)
Newton's cradle