Pierre-Auguste Adet (17 May 1763
Nevers
Nevers ( , ; la, Noviodunum, later ''Nevirnum'' and ''Nebirnum'') is the prefecture of the Nièvre department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in central France. It was the principal city of the former province of Nivernais. It is sou ...
– 19 March 1834
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
) was a French scientist, politician, and
diplomat.
He worked with
Lavoisier on a new chemical notation system, and was secretary to the scientific periodical ''
Annales de chimie
__NOTOC__
''Annales de chimie et de physique'' (French for ''Annals of Chemistry and Physics'') is a scientific journal founded in Paris, France, in 1789 under the title ''Annales de chimie''. One of the early editors was the French chemist Anto ...
'', founded in 1789. He proved that
glacial acetic acid
Acetic acid , systematically named ethanoic acid , is an acidic, colourless liquid and organic compound with the chemical formula (also written as , , or ). Vinegar is at least 4% acetic acid by volume, making acetic acid the main component ...
and vinegar acetic acid were the same substance.
In 1796, Adet was elected a member of the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
.
He was secretary to the
Minister of the Navy and the Colonies,
Jean Dalbarade.
He was commissioner to
Saint-Domingue.
He later became French
ambassador to the United States,
He sent
Georges-Henri-Victor Collot on a reconnaissance of the
Ohio River, and
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...
.
In 1803, he was Prefect
Prefect (from the Latin ''praefectus'', substantive adjectival form of ''praeficere'': "put in front", meaning in charge) is a magisterial title of varying definition, but essentially refers to the leader of an administrative area.
A prefect's ...
of the Nièvre
Nièvre () is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region, central-east France. Named after the river Nièvre, it had a population of 204,452 in 2019.[département
In the administrative divisions of France, the department (french: département, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level (" territorial collectivities"), between the administrative regions and the communes. Ninety ...]
''.
In 1809, he was a member of the Corps législatif
The was a part of the French legislature during the French Revolution and beyond. It is also the generic French term used to refer to any legislative body.
History
The Constitution of the Year I foresaw the need for a ''corps législatif''. ...
.
References
External links
Adet's biography in the Dictionary of National Assembly Deputies
(in French)
Further reading
*
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1763 births
1834 deaths
18th-century French chemists
Officiers of the Légion d'honneur
Ambassadors of France to the United States
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