Edme Mariotte

Edme Mariotte, who lived from about 1620 to 1684, was a French physicist and priest, particularly well known for formulating Boyle's law independently of Robert Boyle. Born in Til-Châtel as the youngest son of an administrator of the district, he is also credited with designing the first Newton's cradle, and in 1660 he discovered the eye's blind spot, showing that a small coin placed in it disappears from vision, a trick that amazed the French royal court. In 1668 Colbert invited him to take part in the Académie des Sciences, and he was one of the first members of the French Academy of Sciences founded at Paris in 1666. His Essais de physique, published at Paris between 1676 and 1679, are his most important works; the second, De la nature de l'air, states that the volume of a gas varies inversely as the pressure, and Mariotte said Boyle's theory was right only when the temperature is constant. The fourth essay treats the nature of colour, and his papers cover the motion of fluids, the notes of the trumpet, the barometer, the fall of bodies, the recoil of guns and the freezing of water. He moved to Paris in 1670 and died there on 12 May 1684.