Antoine Deparcieux
Encyclopedia
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
.
In 1746, Antoine Deparcieux (1703–1768) published Essai sur les probabilités de la durée de la vie humaine (An Essay on the Probabilities of the Duration of Human Life). Deparcieux analyzed in detail empirical observations. As a mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
and physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
, he can be considered, after Halley
Edmond Halley
Edmond Halley FRS was an English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist who is best known for computing the orbit of the eponymous Halley's Comet. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, following in the footsteps of John Flamsteed.-Biography and career:Halley...
and Struyck, one of the founders of the estimation of longevity
Longevity
The word "longevity" is sometimes used as a synonym for "life expectancy" in demography or known as "long life", especially when it concerns someone or something lasting longer than expected ....
and all the issues surrounding that concept.
Antoine Deparcieux was born in 1703 in Cessoux parish, Peyremale, a small village close to Nîmes
Nîmes
Nîmes is the capital of the Gard department in the Languedoc-Roussillon region in southern France. Nîmes has a rich history, dating back to the Roman Empire, and is a popular tourist destination.-History:...
in the south of France. His family was poor. His father, Jean-Antoine Deparcieux, and mother, Jeanne Donzel, were peasant
Peasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
s. Jean-Antoine died when Antoine was only 12 years old, and his elder brother, Pierre, who was a carpenter
Carpenter
A carpenter is a skilled craftsperson who works with timber to construct, install and maintain buildings, furniture, and other objects. The work, known as carpentry, may involve manual labor and work outdoors....
, raised him. The parish priest of Peyremale provided Antoine’s early education before he attended the school of the Jesuits of Ale's. Although we know that he spent some time at their school in Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
(around 1725) in exchange for his labour, little information exists about this period in his life.
Deparcieux came to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
around 1730. He became the collaborator, then the secretary of the geometer De Montcarville, who was a member of the French Academy of Sciences
French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research...
and a teacher at the Collège de France
Collège de France
The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...
. Montcarville played an important part in Deparcieux’s career. Apparently, Deparcieux improved his mathematical and mechanical knowledge under Montcarville’s guidance and eventually became his assistant at the Collège de France. Meanwhile, Deparcieux learned to construct sundial
Sundial
A sundial is a device that measures time by the position of the Sun. In common designs such as the horizontal sundial, the sun casts a shadow from its style onto a surface marked with lines indicating the hours of the day. The style is the time-telling edge of the gnomon, often a thin rod or a...
s and had the Duke of Nevers among his customers.
After the publication of Treatise on Trigonometry and Gnomons (1741), Deparcieux was elected to membership in the Royal Society of Sciences of Montpellier
Montpellier
-Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council....
. Moreover, after the publication of Essay on the Probabilities of the Duration of Human Life in 1746, he was received at the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris.
Although this essay allowed him to enter the academy, he was admitted as a physicist and mechanical engineer. On January 12, 1746, he read his essay during a session of the academy. Two weeks later, he was proposed as adjoint-mécanicien at the same time as the famous Vaucanson
Jacques de Vaucanson
Jacques de Vaucanson was a French inventor and artist who was responsible for the creation of impressive and innovative automata and machines such as the first completely automated loom.-Early life:...
, who got the post. On February 16, 1746, Deparcieux was elected as adjoint-géomètre, then promoted to associé-géomètre on May 16, 1756, succeeding d’Alembert
Jean le Rond d'Alembert
Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. He was also co-editor with Denis Diderot of the Encyclopédie...
, who had been elected pensionnaire-surnuméraire. Deparcieux became Royal Censor in 1765 and then obtained an apartment at the Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
and a yearly allowance. Eventually, Deparcieux was elected pensionnaire-géomètre-surnuméraire on June 11, 1768, and also became a member of the academies of Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, Metz
Metz
Metz is a city in the northeast of France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers.Metz is the capital of the Lorraine region and prefecture of the Moselle department. Located near the tripoint along the junction of France, Germany, and Luxembourg, Metz forms a central place...
, and Lyon.
During the early years of his activities at the Royal Academy, Deparcieux invented several machines. He devised an engine that elevated water at Crécy castle, a pump for Arnouville castle, and at the administration's request, a press for the preparation of tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
. His greatest project concerning the river Yvette
Yvette
The Yvette is a small river in southern Île-de-France , left tributary of the Orge, which is a tributary of the Seine. Its source is in Les Essarts-le-Roi, north of Rambouillet, in the Yvelines department...
(Canal de l’Ourcq) was implemented only during the first empire. Although he seemed ready to forsake mathematics for mechanics, in 1760 he returned to the probabilities of the duration of life and published an addition to his 1746 essay on the subject.
After a discussion during one session in March 1768, the longtime secretary of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Grandjean de Fouchy, was invited to write an abstract of annual population changes for History of the Academy. The presentation of Jean Morand's memoir, containing a compilation of baptismal, marriage, and death records in Paris, led to this decision. The academicians asked Deparcieux to gather such data for the entire century. Unfortunately, he suffered from palsy
Palsy
In medicine, palsy is the paralysis of a body part, often accompanied by loss of sensation and by uncontrolled body movements, such as shaking. Medical conditions involving palsy include cerebral palsy , brachial palsy , and Bell's palsy ....
and rheumatism
Rheumatism
Rheumatism or rheumatic disorder is a non-specific term for medical problems affecting the joints and connective tissue. The study of, and therapeutic interventions in, such disorders is called rheumatology.-Terminology:...
for several years and was already so ill at the time of this assignment that he died 6 months later, on September 1, 1768.
After Addition to the Essay was published in 1760, Deparcieux worked on the revision of Essay during the last months of his life. His colleagues at the academy asked Charles de Borda
Jean-Charles de Borda
Jean-Charles, chevalier de Borda was a French mathematician, physicist, political scientist, and sailor.-Life history:...
and Achille Pierre Dionis du Séjour
Achille Pierre Dionis du Séjour
Achille Pierre Dionis du Séjour was a French astronomer and mathematician.Dionis du Séjour was born in Paris and was a distant relative of surgeon and anatomist Pierre Dionis. He served as an advisor to parliament before he was appointed to the French Academy of Sciences in 1765...
(1734–1794) to examine the unfinished manuscript. They thought that the third part of the book, which was about annuities, should be improved. Although Borda promised to do so, a new edition never appeared.
In 1758, Deparcieux was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. The Academy is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization which acts to promote the sciences, primarily the natural sciences and mathematics.The Academy was founded on 2...
.
Deparcieux never married and had no children, reportedly saying that he simply had no time for it. His nephew and namesake (1753–1799), who inherited a large cabinet de physique from his great uncle, published Deparcieux's Traité des annuite's ou des rentes à vie in 1781.