Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (fr. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon) or simply Buffon; September 7, 1707, Montbard, Burgundy - April 16, 1788, Paris. French naturalist, biologist, mathematician, naturalist and writer of the 18th century.
He expressed the idea of the unity of flora and fauna.
He received a good education from his father, Benjamin Leclerc, Councilor of the Parliament in Dijon, traveled with the young Duke of Kingston to France and Italy, then went to England, where he translated Newton's Method of Fluxions and Gales' Plant Statistics . These translations and several independent articles of mathematical content caused in 1733 his appointment as a member of the Academy of Sciences.
In 1733, the Minister of Marine, Count Morepa, commissioned the Academy to conduct a study on the suitability of different types of wood in shipbuilding. Due to insufficient funding, the commissioners initially nominated refused to cooperate, but Buffon, who was logging in his Montbart, agreed. He conducted many experiments and presented the most complete report. After that, the Minister Morepa offered Buffon the position of chief commissar of all his forest lands, but he refused.
In 1739 he was appointed intendant of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Paris, and from that time on his work was devoted mainly to the natural sciences.
Buffon died in Paris on April 16, 1788, after Louis XV elevated him to the dignity of count, and Louis XVI, during his lifetime, honored him with a bust installed at the entrance to the royal study of natural history with the inscription: "Majestati naturae par ingenium".
In 1970, a crater on the Moon was named after Buffon.
From a scientific point of view, Buffon's writings are of little value today, while they are still a model of oratory, sometimes grandiloquent style. His philosophical attempts to explain the phenomena of nature found a sharp opponent already in Condillac and could only attract to themselves as a poetic representation of nature; such, for example, is the theory of the Earth (“the epoch of nature”) written in the most brilliant style. Observations on the life of animals are rarely collected by him, but cleverly processed, although not from a physiological point of view. Of scientific importance are also the systematic works of Daubanton, Buffon's comrade, who took a serious part in Buffon's Natural History of Mammals.
genus. 7 Sept. 1707, Montbard, Côte d'Or - d. 16 Apr. 1788, Paris) French. naturalist; Together with Daubanton and others, he took part in the publication of "Natural History" ("Historic naturelle", 36 volumes, 1749-1789), which was translated into almost all languages; came close to the idea of development, especially in his work "Epoques de la nature", 1787 (Russian translation "General and private natural history", parts 1-10, 1802-1827). In contrast to Linnaeus, he defended the idea of the variability of species under the influence of environmental conditions.
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(September 7, 1707 - April 15, 1788) - French. nature tester, one of the founders of the doctrine of the development of nature and organic. the world in particular. An aristocrat by birth, B. graduated from college in Dijon. Adjunct (1733) and member of Acad. Sciences (1753). Ch. B.'s work - "Natural History" ("Histoire naturelle, g? . - "General and private natural history", parts 1-10, 1789-1808). In this work, B. consistently analyzed the history of the development of the Earth, man, quadrupeds, birds and minerals. Developing the ideas of Descartes and Leibniz, B. in Op. "Theory of the Earth" ("Th?orie de la terre", 1749) developed the hypothesis of the origin of the Earth from the Sun as a result of its collision with a comet. B. described the alleged process of cooling the Earth, the formation of its surface and the emergence of plants, animals and humans, determined the duration of the history of the Earth in 74 thousand s. years. The condemnation by the theological faculty of the Paris University (1751) of B.'s provisions, as contradicting the Holy Scriptures, forced him to renounce them. However, in Op. "Era of nature" ("Des E? poques de la nature", 1778) B. again returned to the idea of the development of the Earth, dividing its history into 7 periods with a total duration of 85 thousand years. B. put forward a hypothesis about the "organic molecules" that make up the body of any organism; organic molecules are miniature prototypes of parts and organs of living beings and during the processes of reproduction, they are reassembled, forming new organisms, growing and developing on the basis of the "internal model" (moule interi?re), specific for each plant and animal species. As an opponent of the systematics of Linnaeus, B. gave a monograph. descriptions of individual groups of animals, the influence of the environment on their change, trying to prove the common origin of certain animal species. Thus, he considered the donkey to be a "degenerate" horse, the monkey to be a "degenerate" man. Fearing to incur the persecution of the church, B. only in 1766 expressed in a more general and definite way. form of the belief that within each family or genus the species are descended from each other. B.'s ideas had a lasting impact on the further development of the doctrine of the development of nature and determined in meaning. biological degrees. representations of the French 18th century materialists Op.: Oeuvres philosophiques, P., 1954 (bibliogr. available). Lit.: Lunkevich V.V., From Heraclitus to Darwin, vol. 2, M.–L., 1940; Gaisinovich? ?., ?. ?. Wolf and the doctrine of development, in the book: Wolf K.F., Theory of Origin, [M.], 1950; Flourens P., Histoire des travaux et des idées du Buffon, 2 ?d., P., 1850; Dimier L., Buffon, P., 1919; Roule L., Buffon et la description de la nature, P., 1924. A. Gaisinovich. Moscow.
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon(fr. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon ) or simply Buffon; September 7, Montbard, Burgundy - April 16, Paris) - French naturalist, biologist, mathematician, naturalist and writer of the 18th century. He expressed the idea of the unity of flora and fauna.
While Linnaeus, who was born in the same year, set himself the task of creating the formal side of science, systematics and classification, Buffon tried to oppose the strict methodical course of describing the nature and appearance of animals with their customs and lifestyle, and thereby arouse the interest of educated people in animal world. Accordingly, his plan was to collect individual facts from all branches of natural science and use them to elucidate the system of nature. But to carry out this plan, he lacked both solid knowledge and patience in laborious research. Gifted with a vivid imagination and inclined to resolve doubts with brilliant hypotheses, he could not adapt himself to the strict scientific method of the Linnaean school. An important merit of Buffon is that he put an end to the confusion of positive theology with natural science. This desire did not remain without influence outside of France. At the suggestion of Buffon, free views, despite the strong opposition of Haller, Bonnet and some German scientists, made their way in all directions, and in addition, his observations gave impetus to deeper scientific research.
From a scientific point of view, Buffon's writings are of little value today, while they are still a model of oratory, sometimes grandiloquent style. His philosophical attempts to explain the phenomena of nature found a sharp opponent already in Condillac and could only attract to themselves as a poetic representation of nature; such, for example, is the theory of the Earth (“the epoch of nature”) written in the most brilliant style. Observations on the life of animals are rarely collected by him, but cleverly processed, although not from a physiological point of view. The systematic work of Daubanton, a comrade of Buffon, who took a serious part in " natural history of mammals» Buffon.
In contrast to K. Linnaeus, who defended the idea of the constancy of species in his classification, Buffon expressed progressive ideas about the variability of species under the influence of environmental conditions (climate, nutrition, etc.). In the field of geology, Buffon systematized the factual material known at that time and developed a number of theoretical questions about the development of the globe and its surface.
Some of Buffon's writings are devoted to the sciences of the earth. In The Theory of the Earth (1749), he put forward the hypothesis of the formation of the globe as a fragment, torn off from the Sun by a comet falling on it and gradually cooling down to the very center. Buffon exaggerated the significance of the geological activity of the sea and underestimated the volcanic phenomena and tectonic movements in the history of the Earth. He owns the hypothesis of the development of the globe and its surface.
The Natural History of Animals dealt with mammals, birds, and most of the fish; it began in 1749 (3 vols.) and ended in 1783 (24th vol.). It also contains experiments on geogeny, anthropology, etc. In it, he described many animals and put forward a position on the unity of flora and fauna. In this work, he also claimed that man descended from apes. This caused a strong outcry, and the book was publicly burned by an executioner. Other sources claim that he eventually rejected the idea of man from apes, which was put forward by James Burnett.
Buffon's writings were published frequently, usually under the title "Natural History" ( Histoire naturelle generale et particulière):
There are translations and excerpts from them in almost all European languages.
The famous French naturalist compiled several remarkable articles relating to forestry and the study of the technical properties of wood. In volume III Supplement a l'histoire naturelle» (Paris, MDCCLXXVI) memoirs are placed:
AT " Recherches sur les bois” very interesting experiments are presented on growing dead trees on ship knits by double cutting the tops of the trunks and the tops of young branches of these trees.
For Prince Andrei, seven days have passed since he woke up at the dressing station in the Borodino field. All this time he was almost in constant unconsciousness. The fever and inflammation of the intestines, which were damaged, in the opinion of the doctor who was traveling with the wounded, must have carried him away. But on the seventh day he ate with pleasure a piece of bread with tea, and the doctor noticed that the general fever had decreased. Prince Andrei regained consciousness in the morning. The first night after leaving Moscow was quite warm, and Prince Andrei was left to sleep in a carriage; but in Mytishchi the wounded man himself demanded to be carried out and to be given tea. The pain inflicted on him by being carried to the hut made Prince Andrei moan loudly and lose consciousness again. When they laid him down on the camp bed, he lay with his eyes closed for a long time without moving. Then he opened them and whispered softly: “What about tea?” This memory for the small details of life struck the doctor. He felt his pulse and, to his surprise and displeasure, noticed that the pulse was better. To his displeasure, the doctor noticed this because, from his experience, he was convinced that Prince Andrei could not live, and that if he did not die now, he would only die with great suffering some time later. With Prince Andrei they carried the major of his regiment Timokhin, who had joined them in Moscow, with a red nose, wounded in the leg in the same Battle of Borodino. They were accompanied by a doctor, the prince's valet, his coachman and two batmen.
Prince Andrei was given tea. He drank greedily, looking ahead at the door with feverish eyes, as if trying to understand and remember something.
- I don't want any more. Timokhin here? - he asked. Timokhin crawled up to him along the bench.
“I'm here, Your Excellency.
- How is the wound?
– My then with? Nothing. Here you are? - Prince Andrei again thought, as if remembering something.
- Could you get a book? - he said.
- Which book?
– Gospel! I do not have.
The doctor promised to get it and began to question the prince about how he felt. Prince Andrei reluctantly but reasonably answered all the doctor's questions and then said that he should have put a roller on him, otherwise it would be awkward and very painful. The doctor and the valet raised the overcoat with which he was covered, and, wincing at the heavy smell of rotten meat spreading from the wound, began to examine this terrible place. The doctor was very dissatisfied with something, altered something differently, turned the wounded man over so that he again groaned and, from pain during the turning, again lost consciousness and began to rave. He kept talking about getting this book as soon as possible and putting it there.
- And what does it cost you! he said. “I don’t have it, please take it out, put it in for a minute,” he said in a pitiful voice.
The doctor went out into the hallway to wash his hands.
“Ah, shameless, really,” said the doctor to the valet, who was pouring water on his hands. I just didn't watch it for a minute. After all, you put it right on the wound. It's such a pain that I wonder how he endures.
“We seem to have planted, Lord Jesus Christ,” said the valet.
For the first time, Prince Andrei realized where he was and what had happened to him, and remembered that he had been wounded and that at the moment when the carriage stopped in Mytishchi, he asked to go to the hut. Confused again from pain, he came to his senses another time in the hut, when he was drinking tea, and here again, repeating in his recollection everything that had happened to him, he most vividly imagined that moment at the dressing station when, at the sight of the suffering of a man he did not love , these new thoughts that promised him happiness came to him. And these thoughts, although vague and indefinite, now again took possession of his soul. He remembered that he now had a new happiness and that this happiness had something in common with the Gospel. That's why he asked for the gospel. But the bad position that had been given to his wound, the new turning over, again confused his thoughts, and for the third time he woke up to life in the perfect stillness of the night. Everyone was sleeping around him. The cricket was shouting across the entryway, someone was shouting and singing in the street, cockroaches rustled on the table and icons, in autumn a thick fly beat on his headboard and near a tallow candle that was burning with a large mushroom and stood beside him.
BUFFON (Buffon) Georges Louis Leclerc de (September 7, 1707, Montbard - April 16, 1788, Paris), French naturalist, one of the largest biologists and popularizers of natural science of the 18th century, corresponding member of the Paris Academy of Sciences (1733), foreign honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1776). He graduated from the Jesuit College in Dijon (1726), where he studied law and medicine, after which he traveled for two years.
Buffon showed particular interest in various issues of natural science and mathematics (in probability theory, the Buffon needle problem associated with the so-called geometric probabilities is known). Numerous of his notes and articles were published in the reports of the Paris Academy of Sciences. In 1739, he was appointed director of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Paris (which was also a menagerie) and the "King's Cabinet" (Kunstkamera). Buffon was engaged in replenishing scientific collections and preparing an extensive work on nature. "Natural History" (vols. 1-36, 1749-88), in which Buffon collected a huge amount of factual material about animals, became one of the most famous works on wildlife. Buffon put forward a position on the unity of the plant and animal world; in contrast to K. Linnaeus, he believed that species can change under the influence of environmental conditions (see Transformism). In the works The Theory of the Earth (1749) and The Age of Nature (1778), Buffon outlined his cosmogonic and geological views, based on the idea of the inseparability of matter and motion. According to Buffon, the Earth and other planets are fragments of the Sun, separated when a comet fell on its surface. He determined the age of the Earth at 85 thousand years, highlighting seven periods during which cooling, the formation of rocks, the appearance of plants, animals and humans took place. Thus, unlike the adherents of creationism, Buffon separated natural science from theology, which brought him into conflict with the theological faculty of the Sorbonne, which demanded the burning of the "Ages of Nature" by the hands of the executioner. Thanks to the fame and authority of Buffon, as well as the patronage of the court, the matter was limited to the fact that his philosophy of nature was declared "senile nonsense." Contemporary scientists considered Buffon an amateur, criticized him both for unfounded generalizations and hypotheses, and for excessive prettiness and elation of style. However, it was the latter that helped to interest many readers in natural science, who saw in Buffon a “great painter of nature” (A. S. Pushkin), the author of “excellent articles about animals” (L. N. Tolstoy). "Natural History" was translated into almost all European languages (in Russian - "General and private history of the natural sciences of the Count de Buffon", part 1-10, 1789-1808). During the life of Buffon, his bust was installed at the entrance to the "king's office". Buffon's famous sayings - "Style is a man" and "Genius is patience" - characterize him in the best possible way.
Lit .: Lunkevich V. V. From Heraclitus to Darwin. M.; L., 1940. T. 2. S. 245-264; Kanaev I.I., Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon. M.; L., 1966; Razumovskaya M. V. Buffon - writer: (French naturalists of the 18th century and literature). SPb., 1997.
There are many theories about how the world came into existence. Since ancient times, this has worried the minds of people. Georges Buffon was among the first to present the hypothesis of the emergence of the human world. In doing so, he opened the door for the further development of mankind.
The scientist was born in France. Studied biology and mathematics. In his book Natural History, he presented his own vision of the origin of the world. The Frenchman Georges Buffon made a significant contribution to biology. Brief information from his hypothesis:
According to this man's theory, there were very hot celestial bodies in space, formed as a result of an explosion. As soon as they cooled, life began to emerge on planet Earth. However, this took a very long time.
This man did not put forward the theory of the origin of the Sun or comets. He only wondered how the world of mankind came into existence. The essence of Georges Buffon's hypothesis describes this process as a large collision of a comet and the Sun. This man believed that large meteorites did not belong to the solar system. In his opinion, solid bodies are the Sun and comets, but this is not true. Georges Buffon believed that due to the collision of comets, the burning star began to rotate, and its parts formed planets revolving around it. As a result, according to the theory, celestial bodies move in the direction that can be observed now. Thus, Georges Buffon explained the origin of the planets. They all broke away from the Sun. However, humanity now knows that this hypothesis is wrong. Thanks to his theory, he made a significant contribution to the development of science.
This outstanding person suggested the appearance of almost all celestial bodies in the universe. Satellites appeared when the planets rotated around their axis very quickly and were in a liquid state. Due to the high speed of rotation, particles separated from the celestial bodies and these large stars were formed from them.
If you pay attention to the many theories after this person, you can see that scientists have long started from his hypothesis. Georges Buffon created an idea that has long appeared in other cosmological assumptions about the origin of the world.
Some people may think the answer is obvious. It is easy enough for contemporaries to talk about this, knowing that the burning star is not at all solid. Comets, on the other hand, have a very small mass, which is why it is almost impossible for them to influence the Sun, and even more so to break off several parts from it. If modern hypotheses are to be believed, then the great luminary has never been in a molten state. This information allows us to crush the Buffon hypothesis. In addition, the broken parts from the Sun were bound to return. Also the movement of the planets after such a huge impact is unrealistic. Because of what, after a short period of time, this assumption was questioned. And Pierre Simon Lapal completely criticized him, because of which the hypothesis was eliminated from the scientific world.
In the scientific community, disputes about the origin of the world are still ongoing. However, many scientists believe that the Kant-Laplace theory can be considered the most truthful. It says that at the very beginning there was only a gas cloud that revolved around the nucleus. These matters attracted each other, and gradually the gas-fog clot formed into a disk. Due to the fact that the gas was uneven, rings appeared. They loosened up after a while. After the clot cooled, planets formed, and the rings turned into satellites. The sun is the only clot that exists now and has not cooled down. This theory was named so because of the people who first put forward it. Gradually, scientists are studying the cosmos, which allows them to discover more and more new features of the origin of the planets. Experts believe that the hypothesis is still poorly argued, but its contribution to the development of the science of astronomy is very high.