Jean Richer was a French astronomer

Astronomer

An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...

 and assistant (élève astronome) of Giovanni Domenico Cassini

Giovanni Domenico Cassini

This article is about the Italian-born astronomer. For his French-born great-grandson, see Jean-Dominique Cassini.Giovanni Domenico Cassini was an Italian/French mathematician, astronomer, engineer, and astrologer...

.

Between 1671 and 1673 he traveled to Cayenne

Cayenne

Cayenne is the capital of French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France located in South America. The city stands on a former island at the mouth of the Cayenne River on the Atlantic coast. The city's motto is "Ferit Aurum Industria" which means "Work brings wealth"...

 at the request of 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...

 to observe Mars

Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...

 during its perigee

Perigee

Perigee is the point at which an object makes its closest approach to the Earth.. Often the term is used in a broader sense to define the point in an orbit where the orbiting body is closest to the body it orbits. The opposite is the apogee, the farthest or highest point.The Greek prefix "peri"...

. This led to an estimate of the distance between sun and Mars.

While there he also measured the length of the seconds pendulum

Seconds pendulum

A seconds pendulum is a pendulum whose period is precisely two seconds; one second for a swing in one direction and one second for the return swing, a frequency of 1/2 Hz....

, that is a pendulum with a swing of one second, and found it was 1.25 ligne

Ligne

The ligne is a unit of length that was in use prior to the French adoption of the metric system in the late 18th century, and is still used by French and Swiss wristwatch makers to measure the size of a watch movement.- Watchmakers' use :There are 12 lignes to one French inch...

s (2.8 millimeters*) shorter than at Paris. This was due to the decrease of gravitational force with latitude

Latitude

In geography, the latitude of a location on the Earth is the angular distance of that location south or north of the Equator. The latitude is an angle, and is usually measured in degrees . The equator has a latitude of 0°, the North pole has a latitude of 90° north , and the South pole has a...

, due to the oblate shape of the Earth. He thus became the first person to observe a change in gravitational force, beginning the science of gravimetry

Gravimetry

Gravimetry is the measurement of the strength of a gravitational field. Gravimetry may be used when either the magnitude of gravitational field or the properties of matter responsible for its creation are of interest...

.

He died at Paris in 1696.

• note: this does not agree with the difference of 2.5 minutes observed as quoted on the pendulum page... This number gives a time difference of 8.1 minutes (~5.2 if the world's lowest, in Mexico City, is assumed (still a factor of 2x above quoted))

External links

• http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Richer.html
• http://galileo.rice.edu/Catalog/NewFiles/richer.html