| Friends, can anyone find out the Christian name and the years of
| birth and death of the French engineer Peaucellier who invented in
| 1867 the first exact mechanism for the translation of a cyclic
| motion into a straight motion? It is very remarkable that in the
| anthology of mathematical texts by Smith is reproduced a piece of
| Peaucellier's memoire and in a footnote the biographical data of
| the Russian Lipkin who reinvented independently this mechanism
| some years later, but not the data of Peaucellier. Should also
| Smith have had trouble to find out this?
It is worth recalling that Charles-Nicolas Peaucellier (1832-1913) did
not invent his "compas compose" in 1867. In this year, Peaucellier
submitted to the "Societe Philomatique de Paris" a description of the
"compas compose", but he had invented this instrument years before.
To my knowledge, the earliest published notice of his "compas" appeared
in 1864 [_Nouvelles Annales de Mathematiques_ (ser 2, vol 3, p 414)]
as a letter to the editor ("Lettre de M. Peaucellier, capitaine du Genie,
a Nice").
As Peaucellier acknowledged himself in 1873, the Russian mathematician
Lippman Lipkin (1846-1876) discovered the same thing, independently, but
later than him.
Further quick comments:
1. In "M. Peaucellier", the "M." stands for Monsieur (as it was the
custom at the time).
2. Please note also that it has been reported onlist that Peaucellier
was a French Captain. Indeed. But he also was GENERAL Peaucellier - he
retired in 1893. I don't think it should be too hard to find lots more
about him if you search in that direction.
3. Efficient librarians at l'Ecole Polytechnique should also be capable
of providing relevant first-hand information and pictures on Peaucellier,
I presume. Not only Peaucellier was a student of this famous Ecole (to
which he entered in 1850), but also was "President du Conseil". By the
way, his controversies in 1896 with the president of "l'Academie des
Sciences", the physicist Alfred Cornu (1841-1902), concerning some
changes of the "programmes du concours d'entree", are well documented.
Julio Gonzalez Cabillon