Reseña

Nicole Lepaute was a brilliant 18th-century French astronomer who devoted much of her life to calculating the trajectories of different celestial bodies. Her work, in which she considered Newton's theories, was of such quality that she came to predict with great accuracy the moment in which Halley's Comet would pass, on 13 March 1759, and to calculate the position of the stars during a solar eclipse in 1756 during periods of 15 minutes and in different parts of Europe.

Justificaciones

• Considered one of the best "astronomical computers" of the time.
• She predicted the date on which Halley's Comet passed with great accuracy (March 13, 1759).
• She participated in the calculation of ephemeris of stars, very important information for astronomers and navigators.
• She predicted the position of an eclipse in 1764 in 15-minute intervals with great accuracy.
• In 1761 she was recognized as an honorary member of the Scientific Academy of Béziers.
• The asteroid 7720 and a lunar crater are called Lepaute to commemorate her figure.
• She calculated how the gravity of Jupiter and Saturn influenced the trajectory of Halley's comet.
• She mapped the path of the solar eclipse in Europe in 1762.
• She built a group of catalogs for the stars.

Biografía

Nicole-Reine was born on 5 January 1723 at the Luxembourg Palace in Paris, where her father, Jean Étable, worked in the service of the Queen of Spain Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans (1709-1742).

In 1749 she married Jean-André Lepaute, royal watchmaker at the Luxembourg Palace, and known in Europe for his great work as a master craftsman, designer, manufacturer, and repairer of watches. Nicole-Reine helped her husband with his work and, through him, she met the astronomer Joseph-Jérôme de Lalande.

In 1753, the Académie des Sciences commissioned Lalande to study Lepaute's clock, encouraged by the astronomer, Lepaute began to design and build astronomical pendulums. Nicole-Reine made the calculations of the oscillation tables of those pendulums.

In 1757, a year before the expected return of Halley's Comet (as predicted by Edmund Halley), Lalande proposed to the mathematician Alexis Clairaut to check Halley's predicted date. Clairaut established the computational models and Lalande, helped by Nicole-Reine Lepaute, was in charge of the numerous calculations that were needed: it was mainly a question of measuring the effect that the planets Jupiter and Saturn exerted on the trajectory of the comet and, therefore, on the expected date of its return.

In November 1758, Clairaut announced the return of Halley's Comet for 13 April 1759, with a margin of error of one month. The prediction was a great success: the comet passed its perihelion on 13 March 1759.

Clairaut published his Théorie du mouvement des comètes in 1760 without mentioning Nicole-Reine Lepaute among the calculating people who had contributed to this work. This fact undermined his long friendship with Lalande and, in fact, they did not collaborate on astronomical research again.

In 1759, the Académie des Sciences asked Lalande to take charge of the astronomical ephemerides they published under the name La connaissance des temps; this yearbook was widely used by astronomers and sailors and was used, for example, to calculate the transit of Venus in 1761 and 1769. The astronomer hired calculating people, and chose Nicole-Reine Lepaute as his assistant in this task. Two years later Lepaute was admitted to the Académie de Béziers for her work on astronomical tables.

Lalande and Nicole collaborated for a long time and he always recognized the work of Nicole Lepaute.

She worked alongside mathematician Jerome Lalande, who emphasized the work of women astronomers throughout history in the following paragraph: “The beautiful Hypatia wrote several treatises: she was professing astronomy in Alexandria when she was assassinated by the clergy in 415. Maria Cunitz, daughter of a Silesian physician, published astronomical tables in 1650. Marie-Claire Eimmart Muller, the daughter and wife of well-known astronomers, was also an astronomer. Jeanne Dumée presented in 1680 interviews on the Copernican system. Hevelius's wife observed alongside him. Manfredi's sisters calculated the ephemeris of Bologna; Kirch's three sisters calculated for a long time the ephemeris of Berlin; his wife, born Winkelmann, presented in 1712 a work on astronomy. The Marquise de Châtelet has provided a translation of Newton. The Countess of Puzynina has founded an observatory in Poland […]. Madame Lepaute, who died in 1788, has calculated the Academy's ephemerides for more than ten years, and Edwards's widow works in England on the “Nautical almanac”. Madame du Piery has made numerous calculations of eclipses to better understand the movement of the Moon. She was the first to practice astronomy in Paris. Miss Caroline Herschel works with her brother. She has already discovered five comets. The Duchess of Gotha has done a lot of calculations, but she doesn't want to be quoted. My niece, Le Français de Lalande, assists her husband in his observations and draws conclusions from them by calculations; she has reduced ten thousand stars, she has prepared three hundred pages of timetables for the navy, an immense job for her age and sex. They are in my “Abrégé de Navigation”.

Nicole-Reine Lepaute investigated the annular eclipse of 1764 for which she drew a visibility map showing the progression in fifteen-minute intervals for all of Europe. This work was published under her own name in La connaissance des temps under the title of “Explication de la carte qui représente le passage de l’ombre de la lune au travers de l’Europe dans l’eclipse du soleil centrale et annulaire”. Her calculations necessitated the preparation of a table of parallactic angles (angle of displacement of an object caused by a change in the observer's position), the extended version of which was published by the French government. The accuracy of the astronomical calculations performed by Nicole Lepaute was due to the fact that she took into account Newton's theories.

Nicole-Reine Lepaute had no children, but in 1768 she took in one of her husband's nephews, Joseph Lepaute Dagelet (1751-1788), whom she taught astronomy and who was elected adjunct astronomer at the French Académie Royale des Sciences in 1785. Lalande regarded his nephew's tutoring as Lepaute's contribution to astronomy.

The last seven years of her life were spent caring for her seriously ill husband. Her own health was affected, gradually losing her sight. Nicole-Reine died on 6 December 1788.

Extracted from:

Macho Stadler, Marta (2022). "Nicole-Reine Lepaute, la minuciosa e incansable astrónoma calculadora” Cuaderno de cultura científica, Universidad del país vasco, 23/01/2022,    <https://culturacientifica.com/2022/01/05/nicole-reine-lepaute-la-minuciosa-e-incansable-astronoma-calculadora/> 

Obras

Bibliografía

-        Wikipedia contributors (2020): “Nicole-Reine Lepaute”, Wikipedia la enciclopedia libre, 09/04/2022, <https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicole-Reine_Lepaute>

-        Hernández, Hortensia (2019): “Nicole-Reine Lepaute astrónoma y matemática del siglo XVIII” en Heroínas, 29/03/2022, <http://www.heroinas.net/2019/12/nicole-reine-lepaute-astronoma-y.html>

-        Macho Stadler, Marta (2022) “Nicole-Reine Lepaute, la minuciosa e incansable astrónoma calculadora” en Cuaderno de cultura científica, Universidad del País Vasco, 23/03/2022,  <https://culturacientifica.com/2022/01/05/nicole-reine-lepaute-la-minuciosa-e-incansable-astronoma-calculadora/>

-        Badinter,  Élisabeth, (2004-2005). “Un couple d'astronomes: Jérôme Lalande et Reine Lepaute”, Société archéologique, scientifique et littéraire de Béziers, 10e série, vol. 1, p. 71-76. https://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/index2.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fastro-history.hautetfort.com%2Flist%2Fdownloads_-_paers_articles%2Fe-badinter-lalandelepaute-2005.pdf%2Findex.html#federation=archive.wikiwix.com  Fecha consulta 14/02/2022

-        Connor, Elisabeth (1944) .”Mme. LePaute, an eighteenth century computer”, Astronomical Society of the Pacific leaflets, vol. 4, nº 189, pp. 314-321.       Disponible en: https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1944ASPL....4..314C&defaultprint=YES&filetype=.pdf Fecha consulta 14/02/2022

Enfoque Didáctico

She can be studied in mathematics, in the study of trajectories.

In physics and chemistry in motion, forces, and gravitation. In biology and geology in the study of the universe.

It can even be addressed in ethical values to deal with misogyny using this paragraph from the great Larousse encyclopaedia <<Madame Lepaute was the living denial of this opinion, often founded, which denies women the ability to reconcile science and charm, the study and domestic qualities. She was as good a housewife as she was an excellent geometer, and she was even more diligent in helping than in calculating>> Larousse, Pierre (1866-1877), Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle.

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