Jean-Baptiste Bélanger

Jean-Baptiste Charles Joseph Bélanger (4 April 1790 – 8 May 1874) was a French applied mathematician who worked in the areas of hydraulics and hydrodynamics.

The correct application of momentum considerations to the hydraulic jump flow was derived 10 years later and first published by him in 1841[7] as part of a series of lecture notes for the École nationale des ponts et chaussées.

Altogether Bélanger's 1828, and 1841 contributions to modern open channel hydraulics were remarkable and influenced the works by Jacques Antoine Charles Bresse, Henry Darcy, Henry Émile Bazin, Adhémar Jean Claude Barré de Saint-Venant, and Joseph Valentin Boussinesq, as well as Philipp Forchheimer and Boris Bakhmeteff.

[1] Linking kinematics and dynamics, he argued that the mechanics is based upon three principles: inertia, action-reaction and constant ratio force to acceleration at any point.

An unusual aspect of Bélanger’s career was his most successful involvement in both professional engineering (1816–1838) and academic teaching (1838–1864), as well as his capabilities to develop fundamental new textbooks, widely respected in France and overseas (Chanson 2010).