Auguste Bravais (23 August 1811, Annonay

Annonay

Annonay is a commune in the north of the Ardèche department in the Rhône-Alpes region in southern France. It is the most populous commune in the Ardèche department, although it is not the capital, which resides in the smaller town of Privas.-Geography:...

, Ardèche

Ardèche

Ardèche is a department in south-central France named after the Ardèche River.- History :The area has been inhabited by humans at least since the Upper Paleolithic, as attested by the famous cave paintings at Chauvet Pont d'Arc. The plateau of the Ardeche River has extensive standing stones ,...

 – 30 March 1863, Le Chesnay

Le Chesnay

Le Chesnay is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris from the center-History:...

, France) was a French physicist, well known for his work in crystallography

Crystallography

Crystallography is the experimental science of the arrangement of atoms in solids. The word "crystallography" derives from the Greek words crystallon = cold drop / frozen drop, with its meaning extending to all solids with some degree of transparency, and grapho = write.Before the development of...

 (the Bravais lattices, and the Bravais laws). Bravais also studied magnetism

Magnetism

Magnetism is a property of materials that respond at an atomic or subatomic level to an applied magnetic field. Ferromagnetism is the strongest and most familiar type of magnetism. It is responsible for the behavior of permanent magnets, which produce their own persistent magnetic fields, as well...

, the northern lights

Aurora (astronomy)

An aurora is a natural light display in the sky particularly in the high latitude regions, caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere...

, meteorology

Meteorology

Meteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere. Studies in the field stretch back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century. The 19th century saw breakthroughs occur after observing networks developed across several countries...

, geobotany or phyllotaxis

Phyllotaxis

In botany, phyllotaxis or phyllotaxy is the arrangement of leaves on a plant stem .- Pattern structure :...

, astronomy

Astronomy

Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...

, and hydrography

Hydrography

Hydrography is the measurement of the depths, the tides and currents of a body of water and establishment of the sea, river or lake bed topography and morphology. Normally and historically for the purpose of charting a body of water for the safe navigation of shipping...

.

He studied at the Collège Stanislas

Collège Stanislas de Paris

Le Collège Stanislas de Paris is a private Catholic school in Paris, situated on "Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs" in the Montparnasse arrondissement. It has approximately 3,000 students, and is the largest private school in France....

 in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, then joined the École Polytechnique

École Polytechnique

The École Polytechnique is a state-run institution of higher education and research in Palaiseau, Essonne, France, near Paris. Polytechnique is renowned for its four year undergraduate/graduate Master's program...

 in 1829. He became a naval officer at the end of his studies. He was a big adventurer, he embarked on the Finistere in 1832, then the Loiret, and collaborated in hydrographic work along the Algeria

Algeria

Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...

n Coast. He participated in the Recherche expedition, and was sent to Spitsbergen

Spitsbergen

Spitsbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. Constituting the western-most bulk of the archipelago, it borders the Arctic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea...

 and Lapland

Lapland (region)

Lapland is a region in northern Fennoscandia, largely within the Arctic Circle. It streches across Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula . On the North it is bounded by the Barents Sea, on the West by the Norwegian Sea and on the East by the White Sea...

 to help the Lilloise.

He taught a course in applied mathematics for astronomy

Astronomy

Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...

 in the faculty of sciences in Lyon

Lyon

Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

 starting in 1840. Then he succeeded Victor Le Chevalier in the Chair of Physics, Ecole Polytechnique between 1845 and 1856, after which he was replaced by Hureau of Senarmont

Sénarmont

Sénarmont may refer:*Alexandre-Antoine Hureau de Sénarmont , French general*Henri Hureau de Sénarmont , French mineralogist...

. He is best remembered for pointing out in 1845 that there are 14 unique Bravais lattices in three dimensional crystal

Crystal

A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions. The scientific study of crystals and crystal formation is known as crystallography...

line systems, adjusting the previously existent result (15 lattices) by Frankenheim, obtained three years before. He published a memoire about crystallography in 1847. Co-founder of the Société météorologique de France, he joined the French Academy of Sciences

French Academy of Sciences

The French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research...

 in 1854. Bravais also worked on the theory of observational error

Observational error

Observational error is the difference between a measured value of quantity and its true value. In statistics, an error is not a "mistake". Variability is an inherent part of things being measured and of the measurement process.-Science and experiments:...

s where he is especially known for his 1846 paper "Mathematical analysis on the probability of errors of a point".