Alexis Clairaut
A mathematical prodigy who confirmed the shape of our planet and brought Newton's celestial mechanics down to Earth with groundbreaking clarity.
1713–1765 (age 52)·French mathematician, astronomer, and geophysicist·Birthday: May 13
Biography
Alexis Clairaut was reading calculus textbooks for fun at age ten, and by twelve he presented a paper on geometrical curves to the French Academy of Sciences. This wunderkind didn't burn out; he refined his genius into work that shaped modern science. His most famous adventure came in his twenties, when he joined Maupertuis's expedition to the Arctic Circle to measure the Earth's curvature. The data proved Newton right—the Earth was flattened at the poles—and Clairaut's subsequent mathematical treatise, 'Théorie de la figure de la terre', became a cornerstone of geodesy. He then turned his mind skyward, tackling the messy gravitational dance of the moon, Earth, and sun. His calculations finally explained the nagging discrepancy in the moon's orbit, a triumph that silenced critics of Newtonian physics and cemented his reputation as the man who made the heavens computable.
#1 When Alexis Was Born
The biggest hits of 1713
Alexis's Life & Times
The world at every milestone
1713Born
1718Started school
1726Became a teenager
1729Could drive
1731Could vote
1734Turned 21
1743Turned 30
1753Turned 40
1763Turned 50
1765Died at 52
Key Achievements
- Published his first original mathematical paper to the French Academy of Sciences at the age of twelve.
- Formulated Clairaut's theorem, a fundamental equation in geodesy describing gravity on a rotating spheroid.
- Was a key participant in the 1736-37 Lapland expedition that confirmed Newton's prediction of an oblate Earth.
- Made the first successful prediction of the return of Halley's Comet in 1759, refining calculations to account for planetary perturbations.
Did You Know?
He was admitted to the French Academy of Sciences at the remarkably young age of eighteen.
His 1759 prediction of Halley's Comet's return was off by only one month.
He had a famous rivalry with fellow mathematician Jean le Rond d'Alembert over the solution to the three-body problem.
He published a geometry textbook at age sixteen.
“It is only through the simplicity of its principles that a theory becomes fertile.”
