José María Lanz y Zaldívar (March 26, 1764 – 1839) was a Spanish-Mexican mathematician and engineer. Together with

Agustín de Betancourt Agustín de Betancourt y Molina ( rus, Августин Августинович де Бетанкур, r=Avgustin Avgustinovich de Betankur; french: Augustin Bétancourt; 1 February 1758 – 24 July 1824) was a prominent Spanish engineer, who wo ...

, he developed the classification of mechanisms begun by

Jean Nicolas Pierre Hachette Jean Nicolas Pierre Hachette (6 May 1769 – 16 January 1834), French mathematician, was born at Mézières, where his father was a bookseller. For his early education he proceeded first to the college of Charleville, and afterwards to that of ...

, and counts as one of the founders of industrial kinematics (machine construction). His name is sometimes written as Philippe Louis Lanz.

Biography

He was born in Campeche in the south-east of

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, then Viceroyalty of New_Spain, and studied at Instituto Campechano, where he was later also a teacher. He continued to study naval engineering in Spain. In 1781 he joined the

Spanish Royal Navy The Spanish Navy or officially, the Armada, is the maritime branch of the Spanish Armed Forces and one of the oldest active naval forces in the world. The Spanish Navy was responsible for a number of major historic achievements in navigation, ...

at Cadiz, working as a cartographer and lecturer in mathematics. In Yucatan he studied the use of

henequen Henequen (''Agave fourcroydes'') is a species of flowering plant in the family Asparagaceae, native to southern Mexico and Guatemala. It is reportedly naturalized in Italy, the Canary Islands, Costa Rica, Cuba, Hispaniola, the Cayman Islands and ...

for making ropes and other naval utensils, and published a report on this in 1783,''Observaciones que el alférez de fragata D. José Maria de Lanz, forma sobre la planta nombrada'' henequen, ''sus utilidades, y lo conveniente de su fomento, en cumplimiento de la comision con que lo despacho á Yucatan para la inspeccion de la járcia de esta especie, el Sr. D. Francisco de Borja, Jefe de Escuadra de la Real Armada, y comandante de las fuerzas maritimas del departamento de la Habana,''
dated on October 15, 1873; later reprinted in ''Registro Yucateco'', volume 3 (1846), pages 81–95
digitized by Google
/ref> making him the first to write about the use of this plant. In 1789 he made a tour through Europe with Josef de Mendoza y Ríos, visiting France, England, Germany, Sweden, Poland and Russia. In Paris he met

Gaspard Monge Gaspard Monge, Comte de Péluse (9 May 1746 – 28 July 1818) was a French mathematician, commonly presented as the inventor of descriptive geometry, (the mathematical basis of) technical drawing, and the father of differential geometry. During ...

and

. Lanz left the navy in 1792, stayed in Paris and married there. When Betancourt in 1802 founded the Engineering School for Roads, Canals and Harbours (Escuela de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos), today a branch of the

Technical University of Madrid The Technical University of Madrid or sometimes called Polytechnic University of Madrid ( es, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, UPM) is a public university, located in Madrid, Spain. It was founded in 1971 as the result of merging different Te ...

, Lanz became a professor there, and remained so until 1805. Soon after the establishment in 1794 of

École Polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

in Paris, Monge had proposed a class on the analysis of mechanisms and described the subject to fellow teachers. When the class was first taught in 1806 by Hachette, Lanz and Betancourt were among its students. Lanz revised his lecture notes and published them together with Betancourt as ''Essai sur la composition des machines'' (1808; 2nd ed. 1819; 3rd ed. 1840), encouraged to do so by Monge and Hachette. This textbook on machine design became widespread in European universities. It was translated to English as ''Analytical essay of the construction of machines'' (1820, published by Rudolph Ackermann) and by Thomas Fenwick as ''Essays on practical mechanics'' (1822) and to German by Wilhelm Kreyher as ''Versuch über die Zusammensetzung der Maschinen'' (1829). In the years 1805–1808, he led a Commission for science and art and 1808–1812 he worked for the ministry of the interior. In 1812 he went in exile to South America, and in 1816 became director for a school of mathematics in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

. From 1817 he worked in Paris as a translator and private instructor. Between 1822 and 1826, he worked for the military of the recently independent republic of

Gran Colombia Gran Colombia (, "Great Colombia"), or Greater Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia (Spanish language, Spanish: ''República de Colombia''), was a state that encompassed much of northern South America and part of southern Central Ameri ...

as a cartographer, founder of schools, founder of a museum, and director of an observatory. Back in Paris, he lectured at a school of geography and collaborated with watchmaker Breguet. He died in 1839 in Paris.

References

Lanz, José Maria de
presented in German by "Digitale Mechanismen- und Getriebebibliothek" *"José María Lanz y Zaldívar (1764-1839)", chapter by Carlos S. López Cajún in ''Distinguished Figures in Mechanism and Machine Science'', (2010), pages 111-121; this is volume 7 of the series "History of mechanism and machine science", Springer Verlag
information from the publisher

External links

*The German "Digitale Mechanismen- und Getriebebibliothek" has digitized: **''Essai sur la composition des machines'' (2nd ed. 1819)
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**''Versuch über die Zusammensetzung der Maschinen'' (1829
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lanz, Jose Maria Spanish engineers Mexican engineers 1764 births 1839 deaths People from Campeche City