Callandreau, Pierre Jean Octave

(b. Angouleme, France, 18 September 1852; d. Paris, France, 13 February 1904),

astronomy.

After completing his studies at the École Polytechnique in 1874, Callandreau was induced by Le Verrier to become an aide astronome at the Paris Observatory. While there, Callandreau attended Victor Puiseux’s lectures on celestial mechanics at the Sorbonne. They influenced the young astronomer to devote his energies to perfecting the theories of celestial mechanics. Confident that the germs for the solutions of most problems in mathematical astronomy are to be found in Laplace’s Traité de méchanique céleste, Callandreau contributed more than 100 papers on various problems in this field.

Callandreau’s work was strongly influenced by two of the leading mathematical astronomers of the second half of the nineteenth century, Francois Tisserand and Hugo Gyldén. In 1879 Callandreau translated, from the Swedish, Gyldén’s memoir on perturbation theory; and during the next few years he published several papers, including his doctoral thesis, in which he developed and applied Gyldén’s methods. Callandreau also made significant contributions related to the capture hypothesis concerning Jupiter’s comets. Tisserand, who had published the first general theory based on this hypothesis in 1889, encouraged Callandreau to develop the theory further and to resolve apparent objections to it. For his successful efforts Callandreau received the Prix Damoiseau from the Académie des Sciences in 1891. Callandreau also applied the capture theory ideas to the theory of shooting stars.

Several of Callandreau’s contributions to mathematical astronomy were incorporated by Tisserand into his Traité de méchanique céleste (1888–1896). In 1892) Callandreau became a member of the Académie des Sciences, and in 1893 he was made professor of astronomy at the École Polytechnique. He was an editor of the Bulletin astronomique from 1884 until his death, and it was under his impulsion as president of the Société Astronomique de France from 1899 to 1900 that the first systematic observation of shooting stars was undertaken in France.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Callandreau’s works have not been published in collected form. See, however, his Notice sur les titres scientifiques de M. O. Callandreau (Paris, 1884, 1892). Another listing of his works is Poggendorff, IV, 214.

The following notices, occasioned by Callandreau’s death, represent the extent of the literature on him: Astronomische Nachrichten, 164 (1904), 387; Bulletin astronomique, 21 (1904), 129–138; Revue générale des sciences pures et appliquées, 15 (1904), 281–282; Viertel jahrsschrift der Astronomischen Gesellschaft, 39 (1904), 3–6.

Thomas Hawkins