Jacques Edmond Émile Bour (French: [buʁ]; 19 May 1832 – 8 March 1866)[1] was a French engineer famous for the Bour formula [fr].

His parents were Joseph Bour and Gabrielle Jeunet.

[2]: 287 He was a student at l'École Polytechnique and graduated at the top of his class in 1852.

[2]: 287  After teaching for a year as a professor at l'École des Mines de Saint-Étienne, he became a professor of engineering at l'École Polytechnique.

[3] Bour died on March 8, 1866, in his thirty-fourth year, at Val-de-Grâce from an illness activated, if not provoked, by the fatigues of two long journeys, one to Algeria, for the observation of the eclipse of July 18, 1860, the other to Asia Minor, during the summer of 1863, for long metallurgical explorations.