Reaumur, Rene Antoine Ferchault De

Réaumur, René Antoine Ferchault De 

Born Feb. 28, 1683, in La Rochelle; died Oct. 17, 1757, in Chateau La Bermondière, Maine. French naturalist. Member of the Paris Academy of Sciences (1708).

Reaumur’s chief works were devoted to physics and zoology. In 1730, Réaumur described an alcohol thermometer that he had invented, the scale of which was determined by the boiling and freezing points of water and was divided into 80 degrees. In the field of zoology he shed light on problems of the biology of social insects and aphids and on the relationship between insects and plants; he clarified the functions of the various members of a bee colony.

WORKS

Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des insectes, vols. 1–6. Paris, 1734–42.
“Règles pour construire les thermomètres, dont les degrés soient comparables.” In Histoire de l’Académie royale de sciences, Année 1730: Avec les mémoires de mathématique et de physique pour la même année. Paris, 1732.

REFERENCE

Lunkevich, V. V. Ot Geraklita do Darvina, 2nd ed., vol. 2. Moscow, 1960.