ONERA Alumni: Symposium in tribute to Denis PAPIN (1647-1713)

As part of our partnership with ONERA Alumni, we invite you to attend this symposium.

Organized by Alumni ONERA - Association des docteurs de l'ONERA Académie des Sciences et Institut de France Université d'Angers

Denis Papin was born into a Protestant family near Blois in 1647. Along with Abraham de Moivre, he remains one of the most famous scientists to study at the Académie de Saumur.

A keen physicist from an early age, he obtained a medical degree from the University of Angers in 1669, but stayed on to become an assistant to the great scientist Huygens in Paris.

In 1675, Papin's memoir Nouvelles Expériences du vide (New Vacuum Experiments), with a description of the machines used to perform them, set out the demonstration his master had carried out incuta in 1673 by successfully sliding a piston in a vertical cylinder by igniting a small quantity of gunpowder.

Ahead of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), he spent ten years in exile in England, where he became Robert Boyle's assistant at the Royal Society. He invented the digester and its safety valve. In 1688, Papin was appointed Professor of Mathematics at the University of Marburg in the electorate of Hesse-Cassel. There, he repeated Huygens' experiment by substituting water for gunpowder, proving that steam condensation produced effects comparable to those of gas underpressure. This first atmospheric steam engine is described by Papin in his Nouvelle Méthode pour obtenir à bas prix des forces très grandes (1690). The author points to possible applications, notably for ship propulsion, a task to which he devoted himself for 20 years without much success. In particular, he had to contend with the sailors of the Weser who, fearing competition, destroyed his paddle-steamer. This twist of fate led Papin to return to England, but there again, cruel disappointments awaited him: Boyle was dead, and Newton, who now ruled the Royal Society, scorned him. He died in poverty in London in 1713.

Denis Papin was a member of the Royal Society and the Berlin Academy.

The aim of this symposium is to

- recall the life and work of this great scientist, while evoking the importance of mathematics in his time and today;
- show the use of steam during the industrial rethe industrial revolution of the 19th and 20th centuries in the fields of transport (trains and aerostats) and electricity production in nuclear power plants;
- present the current situation as regards the motorization of trains, airplanes and other aircraft.

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