Nationality French Died March 5, 1938 | Name Antoine Magnan Fields Zoology, Aeronautics | |
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Born 13 June 1881Paris, France ( 1881-06-13 ) Institutions College de FranceEcole pratique des Hautes Etudes Institution College de France, Ecole pratique des hautes etudes | ||
Antoine Magnan (13 June 1881 – 5 March 1938) was a French zoologist and aeronautical engineer who studied the flight of insects and birds for possible lessons to apply to powered flight. He is best known for a remark in his 1934 book Le Vol des Insectes ("Insect Flight") that insect flight was impossible.
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Life and work
Magnan was born in the central 7th arrondissement of Paris on 13 June 1881. He qualified as a doctor of medicine and of science, and received the diploma of superior studies in zoology. He became a professor of animal mechanics applied to aviation at the College de France (from 1929 to 1938), and the director of the experimental morphology laboratory and the aviation laboratory at the Ecole pratique des hautes etudes in Paris. He was responsible to the ministries of Education, Agriculture and the Interior.
Insect flight
The following passage appears in the introduction to Le Vol des Insectes:
Tout d'abord pousse par ce qui se fait en aviation, j'ai applique aux insectes les lois de la resistance de l'air, et je suis arrive avec M. Sainte-Lague a cette conclusion que leur vol est impossible.
This translates to:
First prompted by what is done in aviation, I applied the laws of air resistance to insects, and I arrived, with Mr. Sainte-Lague, at this conclusion that their flight is impossible.
Magnan refers to his assistant, the mathematician and engineer Andre Sainte-Lague as the source of the calculations mentioned.