Gaspard le Compasseur de Créquy-Montfort Courtivron

Gaspard le Compasseur de Créquy-Montfort Courtivron (1715 to 1785) was a French nobleman and soldier who became a scientist and wrote on mechanics, optics and animal disease. Born at the Château de Courtivron in Burgundy, he joined a family regiment in 1730 and saw action at the siege of Philippsbourg. Wounded in the War of the Austrian Succession, he gave up the army for science and studied under Alexis-Claude Clairaut. He worked on statics and dynamics and put forward the idea that a system in static equilibrium sits at a local minimum of potential energy. He supported Newton against the Cartesians on light, and wrote on Fermat's principle of least time. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Sciences in 1744, published on rinderpest in 1745, and retired to his country estate in 1765.