René Grillet de Roven, also René Grillet, was a French mechanic and watchmaker who designed a mechanical calculating machine in the 17th century.

Biography

Grillet came from

Rouen Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine, in northwestern France. It is in the prefecture of Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one ...

in northwestern France, the capital city of

Normandy Normandy (; or ) is a geographical and cultural region in northwestern Europe, roughly coextensive with the historical Duchy of Normandy. Normandy comprises Normandy (administrative region), mainland Normandy (a part of France) and insular N ...

. He served as watchmaker to

King Louis XIV LouisXIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest of any monar ...

. In 1673 Grillet published a small book, ''Curiositez mathematiques de l'invention du Sr Grillet horlogeur a Paris'', in which he announced the invention of an arithmetical calculating machine. A few years later, in 1678, he wrote a short article in '' Le Journal des Sçavans'' describing the machine. According to Grillet, he was inspired by

Blaise Pascal Blaise Pascal (19June 162319August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic Church, Catholic writer. Pascal was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. His earliest ...

's work with calculating machines to combine the

Pascaline A Pascaline signed by Pascal in 1652 Top view and overview of the entire mechanism. This version of Pascaline was for accounting. The pascaline (also known as the arithmetic machine or Pascal's calculator) is a mechanical calculator invented by ...

with

Napier's bones Napier's bones is a manually operated calculating device created by John Napier of Merchiston, Scotland for the calculation of products and quotients of numbers. The method was based on lattice multiplication, and also called ''rabdology'', a w ...

, and build a machine that could perform both addition and multiplication. Grillet displayed his machine at fairs in France and the Netherlands between 1673 and 1681. He tried to establish a business of manufacturing and selling calculating machines, with unclear success. In addition to the calculating machine, in his career Grillet invented a

hygrometer A hair tension dial hygrometer with a nonlinear scale. A hygrometer is an instrument that measures humidity: that is, how much water vapor is present. Humidity measurement instruments usually rely on measurements of some other quantities, such a ...

(for which he was accused of plagiarism by another inventor);

graphometer The graphometer, semicircle or semicircumferentor is a surveying instrument used for angle measurements. It consists of a semicircular wiktionary:Limb#Etymology 2, limb divided into 180 degrees and sometimes subdivided into minutes. The limb is s ...

s; drawing instrument set;

protractor A goniometer is an instrument that either measures an angle or allows an object to be rotated to a precise angular position. The term goniometry derives from two Greek words, γωνία (''gōnía'') 'angle' and μέτρον (''métron'') ' me ...

set square A set square or triangle (American English) is an object used in engineering and technical drawing, with the aim of providing a straightedge at a right angle or other particular planar angle to a baseline. Types The simplest form of set s ...

, with

plumb-bob A plumb bob, plumb bob level, or plummet, is a weight, usually with a pointed tip on the bottom, suspended from a string and used as a vertical direction as a reference line, or plumb-line. It is a precursor to the spirit level and used to esta ...

. In 1690, the first textile-printing factory in England was established by a Frenchman named René Grillet, who took out a patent on the process.

References

*Michael R. Williams ''History of Computing Technology'', IEEE Press 1997 (Kapitel 3.6: René Grillet) *Michael R. Williams ''From Napier to Lucas. The use of Napier's Bones in calculating instruments'', Annals of the History of Computing, Band 5, Nr. 3, 1983, S. 279-296

External links

Stephan Weiss ''Die Rechenkästen nach Schott und ihre Simulation'', pdf

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grillet De Roven, Rene French watchmakers (people) 17th-century artisans Engineers from Rouen 17th-century births Year of death missing