François Daviet de Foncenex (1734 – 1799) was a
Royal Sardinian Army officer and mathematician.
Life and work
François Daviet de Foncenex was born in
Thonon in the
Duchy of Savoy in 1734. He studied in the ''
Accademia di Torino'' under the professorship of
Joseph-Louis Lagrange
Joseph-Louis Lagrange (born Giuseppe Luigi Lagrangia[lieutenant
A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a Junior officer, junior commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations, as well as fire services, emergency medical services, Security agency, security services ...](_blank)
in the
Royal Sardinian Army and quickly rose through the ranks. From 1790 to 1792, Daviet served as the governor of
Sassari
Sassari ( ; ; ; ) is an Italian city and the second-largest of Sardinia in terms of population with 120,497 inhabitants as of 2025, and a functional urban area of about 260,000 inhabitants. One of the oldest cities on the island, it contains ...
and
Villefranche-sur-Mer. In 1792, he fought against the
French Revolutionary Army; he was subsequently convicted of treason and sentenced to imprisonment for one year.
Daviet published in the years 1759-1760 two important papers in the journal of the Academy, ''Miscellanea Taurinensis'': the first one (1759) about
imaginary numbers is titled ''Mémoire sur les logarithmes des quantités négatives'' and has an extension titled ''Éclaircissements sur les quantités imaginaires''; more important is the second one, titled ''Sur les principes fondamentaux de la méchanique'' (1761). In four sections (law of inertia, composition of forces, equilibrium and law of the lever) he tried to establish the ''a priori'' fundamental laws of mechanics.
[, pages 398-399.]
In 1789 he published a paper: ''Récit d'une foudre ascendante éclatée sur la tour du fanal de Villefranche''. Finally, in 1799, the academy published an ensemble of many of his works, named ''Principes fondamentaux de la méchanique''.
References
Bibliography
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Daviet De Foncenex, Francois
1734 births
1799 deaths
18th-century Italian mathematicians
Scientists from the Kingdom of Sardinia
Military personnel of the Kingdom of Sardinia