Camille Flammarion Biography

Camille Flammarion

(Montigny-le-Roi, 1842-Juvisy-sur-Orge, 1925) French astronomer.Author of various works, from 1883 he directed the Juvisy Observatory, founded by himself, from which he carried out numerous investigations on astronomy, meteorology and climatology.He founded the monthly magazine L'Astronomie in 1882 and the Astronomical Society of France, of which he was president until his death.Flammarion's recognition is due to the fact that he was the first serious popularizer of astronomy (and one of the most translated authors), a science that he made available to fans.

Camille Flammarion

Destined for an ecclesiastical career, Camille Flammarion studied theology at the seminary in the city of Langres, an activity that he had to abandon for some time due to various economic setbacks in his family, after which he entered as an apprentice in an engraving workshop.After resuming his studies, Flammarion left them entirely to pursue his great passion, astronomy, which he had studied as an amateur since he was a child.

In 1858, at the age of sixteen, Flammarion was admitted to the Paris Observatory, where he worked at the Longitudes Office for four years, until the publication in 1862 of his first informative work, La pluralité des mondes habités , which placed the young scientist among the top positions of scientific disseminators in the country and brought him impressive fame.Two years later, Flammarion went on to direct the prestigious astronomical magazine Cosmos and took over the scientific department of Siécle , in which he inaugurated an astronomy course aimed at readers non-specialized that from the first moment had an unexpected success.

Thanks to the fame and prestige achieved, Flammarion was able to leave his official jobs to dedicate himself to astronomical research.From 1868 he carried out several balloon ascents in order to study the hygrometric state and the direction of currents in the atmosphere.A year earlier, he had published one of his most famous works, Histoire du ciel , in which he made a magnificent historical-philosophical novel description of the starry sky.The popularity and financial relief provided by the published works and books allowed him to establish his own laboratory and work with greater freedom, regardless of official bodies.

After giving a huge number of scientific works and essays to the press, such as Catalog des étoiles doubles et multiples en mouvement relatif certain (1878), he published two years later the one that It would undoubtedly be his best-known work, of which one hundred thousand copies were sold, something impressive for the time: Astronomie Populaire , a book that was awarded by the French Academy of Sciences.

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