Gustave-Adolphe Hirn was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 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...

, astronomer

Astronomer

An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...

. 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 engineer

Engineer

An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...

 who made important measurements of the mechanical equivalent of heat

Mechanical equivalent of heat

In the history of science, the mechanical equivalent of heat was a concept that had an important part in the development and acceptance of the conservation of energy and the establishment of the science of thermodynamics in the 19th century....

 and contributions to the early development of thermodynamics

Thermodynamics

Thermodynamics is a physical science that studies the effects on material bodies, and on radiation in regions of space, of transfer of heat and of work done on or by the bodies or radiation...

. He further applied his science in the practical development of steam engine

Steam engine

A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...

s.

Life

Hirn was born in Logelbach, near Colmar

Colmar

Colmar is a commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.It is the capital of the department. Colmar is also the seat of the highest jurisdiction in Alsace, the appellate court....

 into the prosperous textile

Textile

A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...

-manufacturing family Haussmann. Baron Haussmann

Baron Haussmann

Georges-Eugène Haussmann, commonly known as Baron Haussmann , was a French civic planner whose name is associated with the rebuilding of Paris...

 was a cousin. At 19, he entered his grandfather's cotton factory as a chemist

Chemist

A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...

. Later he worked as an engineer, and began research on mechanics, especially on calorics. He was made a member of the French Academy of Science in 1867; in 1880 founded a meteorological

Meteorology

Meteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere. Studies in the field stretch back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century. The 19th century saw breakthroughs occur after observing networks developed across several countries...

 observatory near Colmar; and later devoted himself to astronomy

Astronomy

Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...

. Hirn was educated in the shop, and his works are marked by much practical criticism of mere academic theory.

Hirn invented the pandynanometer in 1880 and published a theory of the origin and chemical composition of Saturn's rings, exchanging correspondence with Urbain Jean Joseph Leverrier.

He died in Logelbach.

Works by Hirn

• Hirn G.A. (1849) “Nouvelles recherches sur le frottement des corps solides”, Comptes Rendus, 28, p. 290
• - (1855a) “Etudes sur les principaux phénomènes que présentent les frottements médiats et sur les diverses manières de déterminer la valeur mécanique des matières employées au graissage des machines”, Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 26, p. 202
• - (1855b) “Notice sur les lois de la production du calorique par les frottements médiats”, Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 26, p. 238
• - (1862) Théorie mécanique de la chaleur (Paris, Lieber)
• - (1863) Exposition analytique et expérimentale de la théorie de la chaleur (Paris, Mallet Bachelet)
• - (1869) Analyse de l'univers
• - (1870) Les paradynamometres
• - (1872) Mémoire sur les anneaux de Saturne
• - (1878) Étude sur une classe particuliere de tourbillons
• - (1882) “Recherches expérimentales sur la relation qui existe entre la résistance de l'air et sa température. Conséquences physiques et philosophiques qui découlent de ces expériences”, Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique, 63, p. 91
• - (1882) La vie future et la science moderne
• - (1887) "La thermodynamique et le travail chez les êtres vivants", Revue Scientifique, 22, May, (Paris, Bureau des revues), pp. 673–684
• - (1889) Constitution de l'espace celeste

Other

• Donkin, B. (1893) “Life and work of G.A. Hirn”, Cassier's Magazine, p. 236 (in French)
• Papanelopoulou, F., 'Gustave-Adolphe Hirn (1815-1890): engineering thermodynamics in mid-nineteenth-century France', British Journal for the History of Science (2006), 39(2), 231-254

External links

• Short biography (in French)
• Paris-Province: Energy Physics in Mid-nineteenth-century France by Faidra Papanelopoulou
• The Body and the Metaphors of the Engine