Henri Pitot (; May 3, 1695 – December 27, 1771) was a French

hydraulic engineer Hydraulic engineering as a sub-discipline of civil engineering is concerned with the flow and conveyance of fluids, principally water and sewage. One feature of these systems is the extensive use of gravity as the motive force to cause the mov ...

and the inventor of the

pitot tube A pitot ( ) tube (pitot probe) measures fluid flow velocity. It was invented by a French engineer, Henri Pitot, in the early 18th century, and was modified to its modern form in the mid-19th century by a French scientist, Henry Darcy. It ...

. In a pitot tube, the height of the fluid column is proportional to the square of the velocity of the fluid at the depth of the inlet to the pitot tube. This relationship was discovered by Henri Pitot in 1732, when he was assigned the task of measuring the flow in the river Seine. He rose to fame with the design of the Aqueduc de Saint-Clément near Montpellier (the construction lasted thirteen years), and the extension of

Pont du Gard The Pont du Gard is an ancient Roman aqueduct bridge built in the first century AD to carry water over to the Roman colony of ''Nemausus'' ( Nîmes). It crosses the river Gardon near the town of Vers-Pont-du-Gard in southern France. The Po ...

in Nîmes. In 1724, he became a member of the French Academy of Sciences, and in 1740 a fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

. The Pitot theorem of plane geometry is named after him. Rue Henri Pitot in

Carcassonne Carcassonne (, also , , ; ; la, Carcaso) is a French fortified city in the department of Aude, in the region of Occitanie. It is the prefecture of the department. Inhabited since the Neolithic, Carcassonne is located in the plain of the Au ...

is named after him.

References

External links

History of water distribution
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pitot, Henri 1695 births 1771 deaths Members of the French Academy of Sciences Fellows of the Royal Society Fluid dynamicists Hydraulic engineers 18th-century French engineers People from Gard