Léon Lalanne
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Léon Louis Lalanne (; real surname: Chrétien-Lalanne; 3 July 1811 – 12 March 1892) was a French engineer and politician.


Life

Lalanne was born in Paris on 3 July 1811, as Léon Louis Chrétien, the son of François Julien Léon Chrétien, a physician, and his wife Aurore Marie Damaris Langlois; his surname became Lalanne-Chrétien in 1820, Lalanne being the unmarried name of his father's first wife, and he dropped the Chrétien for practical use. He was the brother of the historian Ludovic Lalanne (1815–1898). Lalanne studied at the
Lycée Louis-le-Grand The Lycée Louis-le-Grand (), also referred to simply as Louis-le-Grand or by its acronym LLG, is a public Lycée (French secondary school, also known as sixth form college) located on Rue Saint-Jacques (Paris), rue Saint-Jacques in central Par ...
, where he was a classmate of
Évariste Galois Évariste Galois (; ; 25 October 1811 â€“ 31 May 1832) was a French mathematician and political activist. While still in his teens, he was able to determine a necessary and sufficient condition for a polynomial to be solvable by Nth root, ...
. From 1829 at the
École Polytechnique (, ; also known as Polytechnique or l'X ) is a ''grande école'' located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris. The school was founded in 1794 by mat ...
, he went on to the École des ponts et chaussées in 1831. After that, he was a civil engineer, working mostly in northern France from 1832 to 1843. In 1837 he went on the group visit to Southern Russia organized by Anatoly Demidov (the future Count Demidov and 1st Prince of San Donato). From 1839 he was working also with Jean-Claude-Républicain Arnoux, his future father-in-law, on the
Ligne de Sceaux The Ligne de Sceaux (, ''Sceaux Line)'' was a railway line in France running from Paris, which initially linked the Place Denfert-Rochereau (then called the ''Place d'Enfer'', in Paris, to the town of Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, Sceaux. The line ori ...
; he married in 1841. During the
Revolution of 1848 The revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the springtime of the peoples or the springtime of nations, were a series of revolutions throughout Europe over the course of more than one year, from 1848 to 1849. It remains the most widespre ...
, Lalanne was briefly made head of the Ateliers Nationaux (National Workshops). He undertook a severe rationalisation of the structure set up by Émile Thomas. Brought in during May, he had closed down the institutions of the Ateliers by the end of June. In the civil unrest that occurred simultaneously he commanded a battalion of the
Garde Nationale The National Guard () is a French military, gendarmerie, and police reserve force, active in its current form since 2016 but originally founded in 1789 during the French Revolution. It was founded as separate from the French Army and exis ...
in Paris. He was detained as a subversive on 29 June, but all charges were dropped on 5 August. As a civil engineer, Lalanne became known for railway construction in Spain, Switzerland and
Wallachia Wallachia or Walachia (; ; : , : ) is a historical and geographical region of modern-day Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians. Wallachia was traditionally divided into two sections, Munteni ...
, where he was first engaged in 1852. He went to
Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Buc ...
in 1852, but encountered difficult local conditions. Russian operations against Ottoman possessions from July 1853, preceding the outbreak within months of the
Crimean War The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont fro ...
, made his position untenable as French and British diplomats left. From 1853 Lalanne directed the construction of railway lines in France (Part route to Strasbourg, Ardennes, Boulogne and Calais, etc.), in Switzerland (1856–1860, the railway network to the west) and northern Spain (1860/61) and the route Cordoba and Seville. He made a further visit to Wallachia in 1856. From inspector-general (1867), Lalanne in 1876 became director of the École des ponts et chaussées. Further experiences along the Danube involved Lalanne in
Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...
, and in
Silistra Silistra ( ; ; or ) is a town in Northeastern Bulgaria. The town lies on the southern bank of the lower Danube river, and is also the part of the Romanian border where it stops following the Danube. Silistra is the administrative center of the ...
with a bridge project, and monitoring involved with demarcation after the
Treaty of Berlin (1878) The Treaty of Berlin (formally the Treaty between Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Great Britain and Ireland, Italy, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire for the Settlement of Affairs in the East) was signed on 13 July 1878. In the aftermath of the R ...
. In 1879 Lalanne became a member of the
Académie des sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...
. In 1881 he retired, and was made a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour. He became involved in politics again in the moderate left-wing. In 1883 he became a
senator for life A senator for life is a member of the senate or equivalent upper chamber of a legislature who has life tenure. , five Italian senators out of 205, two out of the 41 Burundian senators, one Congolese senator out of 109, and all members of the Bri ...
(''sénateur inamovible''). In 1882, he was Chairman of the Compagnie des omnibus de Paris. He died in Paris.


Works

The context of much of Lalanne's work was the construction of the Belgian and French rail systems.


Cartography

With
Charles Joseph Minard Charles Joseph Minard (; ; 27 March 1781 – 24 October 1870) was a French civil engineer recognized for his significant contribution in the field of information graphics in civil engineering and statistics. Minard was, among other things, noted ...
, another civil engineer of the Ponts et Chaussées, Lalanne is considered to have made important contributions to rigorous
cartography Cartography (; from , 'papyrus, sheet of paper, map'; and , 'write') is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an imagined reality) can ...
. He first clarified the distinction between an isometric line and an isopleth. Interested in population density and centres, Lalanne plotted innovative maps (1845) with contours of the same population density, and announced an "equilateral law" of equal spacing of the centres (1875), which he found a good fit in France. A paper of 1863 raised general considerations on transport routes and population distributions, direction later covered in work of Walter Christaller.


Mathematics

With Philbert Maurice d'Ocagne Lalanne is considered the inventor of the
nomogram A nomogram (), also called a nomograph, alignment chart, or abac, is a graphical Analog computer, calculating device, a two-dimensional diagram designed to allow the approximate graphical computation of a Function (mathematics), mathematical fu ...
. The intention was to replace the
slide rule A slide rule is a hand-operated mechanical calculator consisting of slidable rulers for conducting mathematical operations such as multiplication, division, exponents, roots, logarithms, and trigonometry. It is one of the simplest analog ...
. In a paper of 1846 Lalanne contributed to the subject the ideas of
anamorphosis Anamorphosis is a distorted projection that requires the viewer to occupy a specific vantage point, use special devices, or both to view a recognizable image. It is used in painting, photography, sculpture and installation, toys, and film speci ...
and the use of
projective transformation In projective geometry, a homography is an isomorphism of projective spaces, induced by an isomorphism of the vector spaces from which the projective spaces derive. It is a bijection that maps lines to lines, and thus a collineation. In general, ...
s. There were applications to the solution of the
cubic equation In algebra, a cubic equation in one variable is an equation of the form ax^3+bx^2+cx+d=0 in which is not zero. The solutions of this equation are called roots of the cubic function defined by the left-hand side of the equation. If all of th ...
. He called his nomographic device the "abac". This "universal calculator" had 60 functions implemented graphically. Half a century later Maurice d'Ocagne provided a general theory, founded in
projective geometry In mathematics, projective geometry is the study of geometric properties that are invariant with respect to projective transformations. This means that, compared to elementary Euclidean geometry, projective geometry has a different setting (''p ...
, for the nonlinear scales related by nomography. In 1840 Lalanne announced
balanced ternary Balanced ternary is a ternary numeral system (i.e. base 3 with three Numerical digit, digits) that uses a balanced signed-digit representation of the integers in which the digits have the values −1, 0, and 1. This stands in contrast to the stand ...
as an arithmetical system, in '' Comptes Rendus''; this followed earlier work on signed arithmetic by John Leslie and
Augustin Cauchy Baron Augustin-Louis Cauchy ( , , ; ; 21 August 1789 – 23 May 1857) was a French mathematician, engineer, and physicist. He was one of the first to rigorously state and prove the key theorems of calculus (thereby creating real a ...
. Also in 1840 he devised a mechanical computer capable of solving numerically polynomial equations up to degree seven.
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 â€“ 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...
cited a paper by Lalanne from the same year 1840 on the geometry of
honeycomb A honeycomb is a mass of Triangular prismatic honeycomb#Hexagonal prismatic honeycomb, hexagonal prismatic cells built from beeswax by honey bees in their beehive, nests to contain their brood (eggs, larvae, and pupae) and stores of honey and pol ...
s, in his ''
Natural Selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the Heredity, heritable traits characteristic of a population over generation ...
'' manuscript.


Infographics

Lalande made a number of innovations in graphics. His "universal computer" was based on a log-log plot. In 1830 he drew a polar area diagram of ocean wind strength.


Civil engineering

As a civil engineer, Lalanne invented and published a graphical method to optimize the design of roads, now known as the ''épure de Lalanne''. He researched it during the 1830s, and published supporting tables. Along the planned route earth masses are plotted (with a negative or positive sign) as the
abscissa In mathematics, the abscissa (; plural ''abscissae'' or ''abscissas'') and the ordinate are respectively the first and second coordinate of a point in a Cartesian coordinate system: : abscissa \equiv x-axis (horizontal) coordinate : ordinate \eq ...
, the sign reflecting whether spoil is to be removed or earth to be added. Estimates of mass movement become an area under the curve.


Political economy and technology

In 1840 Lalanne wrote an encyclopedia article ''Technologie'' for ''Un million des faits'' that cited both
Charles Babbage Charles Babbage (; 26 December 1791 â€“ 18 October 1871) was an English polymath. A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer. Babbage is considered ...
and
Claude Lucien Bergery Claude Lucien Bergery (1787–1863) was a French economist and management theorist. He was a founder of scientific management. Life The son of an innkeeper, Bergery was born in Orléans. He was a student at the École Polytechnique which he enter ...
, in reducing the problems of manufacturing to "technology". The following year in a comparable article ''Essai philosophique sur la technologie'' for the ''
Encyclopédie nouvelle The ''Encyclopédie nouvelle, ou dictionnaire philosophique, scientifique, littéraire et industriel, offrant le tableau des connaissances humaines au XIXe siècle'' () was a French encyclopedia An encyclopedia is a reference work or compe ...
'', edited by
Pierre Leroux Pierre Henri Leroux (; 7 April 1797 – 12 April 1871) was a French philosopher and political economy, political economist. He was born at Bercy, now a part of Paris, France, Paris, the son of an artisan. Life His education was interrupted by ...
and
Jean Reynaud Jean Ernest Reynaud (; February 14, 1806–July 28, 1863) was a French mining engineer and socialist philosopher. He was a member of the Saint-Simonian community. He was a co-founder of the Encyclopédie nouvelle. Life He was born in Lyo ...
, and intended for a less popular readership, he attempted a definition of the neologism "cerdoristique industrielle" of
André-Marie Ampère André-Marie Ampère (, ; ; 20 January 177510 June 1836) was a French physicist and mathematician who was one of the founders of the science of classical electromagnetism, which he referred to as ''electrodynamics''. He is also the inventor of ...
. In so doing he cited Babbage favourably on management accounting principles, and
Andrew Ure Andrew Ure Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (18 May 1778 – 2 January 1857) was a Scottish people, Scottish physician, chemist, scriptural geologist, and early Organizational theory, business theorist who founded the Garnet Hill Observatory. ...
. A strong critic of the principle of
division of labour The division of labour is the separation of the tasks in any economic system or organisation so that participants may specialise ( specialisation). Individuals, organisations, and nations are endowed with or acquire specialised capabilities, a ...
pushed to its logical conclusion, Lalanne picked up the reasoning of Pierre-Édouard Lémontey and took it further. Seeing repetitive work without variation as negative, he saw the solution as lying in automation.


Books

*''Mémoire sur l'arithmoplanimétrie'' (1840) *''Collection de tables pour les abréger calculs relatifs à la réduction of projets de routes et chemins de 6 meters de largeur'' (1843) *''Description et de l'usage abaque ou compteur universel'' (1845). *''Méthodes graphiques pour l'expression des lois empiriques ou mathémathiques à trois variables avec des applications à l'art de l'ingénieur et a la résolution des équations numériques d'un degré quelconde'' (1880).


Notes


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lalanne, Leon Louis Engineers from Paris 1811 births 1892 deaths French cartographers Data and information visualization experts Members of the French Academy of Sciences French life senators