Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis

Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis (1792 to 1843) was a French mathematician, mechanical engineer and scientist, best known for his work on the supplementary forces seen in a rotating frame of reference, which led to the Coriolis effect. Born in Paris, he placed second among the students entering the Ecole Polytechnique in 1808 and became a tutor there in 1816, experimenting on friction and hydraulics. His 1829 textbook Calcul de l Effet des Machines presented mechanics in a form industry could readily use, gave the correct expression one half m v squared for kinetic energy, and applied the word travail, or work, to the transfer of energy by a force acting through a distance. In 1835 he published a classic mathematical study of collisions of spheres in billiards. He became professor of mechanics at the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures in 1829, succeeded Claude-Louis Navier in 1836 at the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees and the Academie des Sciences, directed studies at the Ecole Polytechnique from 1838, and died in Paris in 1843.