By this time, he had assisted Saussure with an experiment that demonstrated the existence of what would later be called infra-red radiation. In a follow-up experiment, named 'Pictet's experiment' by Count Rumford, Pictet discovered that by focusing the radiation from a flask of ice onto a thermometer using two concave mirrors, the effects of cold could be reflected in the same way as the effects of heat.[6] The result of his experiments on heat was published in 1790 as Essai sur le feu (English translation: An Essay on Fire, 1791). At this time he had already converted to Lavoisier's ideas on chemistry.
In 1791, Pictet was one of the twelve founding members of the Geneva Society of Physics and Natural History[fr]. In 1796, he, his younger brother Charles, and his friend Frédéric-Guillaume Maurice began editing a monthly periodical entitled Bibliothèque Britannique, which carried translations of significant scientific papers published in English by scholars such as Davy, Hall, Herschel, Leslie, Playfair, Rumford and Wollaston. In addition to scientific and technical topics, the journal published extracts of British literature and articles on agriculture.[7] After 1815, this periodical included other European materials (mainly French, German and Italian) and took from then on the name of Bibliothèque Universelle de Genève.
As the second director of the Geneva Observatory (1790–1819), Pictet oversaw the installation of a meteorological station. In 1817, he established an additional station on Great St. Bernard mountain in the Alps.
Since 1990, the Geneva Society of Physics and Natural History has offered a yearly award in history of science called the Marc-Auguste Pictet Prize[fr]. It also awards a yearly medal to "a scholar whose work is recognized as an authority in the history of science". Winners are chosen by a panel of University of Geneva professors and field experts.
The lunar crater Pictet was named in his honour in 1935 by astronomers Blagg and Müller.[15]
Family
In 1766, he married Susanne Francoise Turrettini (1757–1811). The couple had three daughters: Dorothée Marie Anne (1777–1841), who married the Swiss Councillor of StateIsaac Vernet[fr], Caroline (1780–1841) and Albertine (1785–1834).[16]
See also
Jean Rilliet, Jean Cassaigneau, Marc-Auguste Pictet ou le rendez-vous de l’Europe universelle, 1752–1825, Genève, Slatkine, 1995 (ISBN9782051013475) (OCLC 36520875) 784 p.
Jean-Daniel Candaux, Histoire de la famille Pictet 1474–1974, Genève, Braillard, 1974.
↑David M. Bickerton, Marc-Auguste and Charles Pictet, the "Bibliothèque Britannique" (1796-1815) and the dissemination of British literature and science on the Continent, Geneva, Slatkine, 1986.
↑Isaac Benguigui, Genève et ses savants: physiciens, mathématiciens et chimistes aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles, Genève, Slatkine, 2006, p.79.
↑“To George Washington from Thomas Jefferson, 23 February 1795,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-17-02-0380. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, vol. 17, 1 October 1794–31 March 1795, ed. David R. Hoth and Carol S. Ebel. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013, pp. 564–569.]
↑"Marc-Auguste Pictet". Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. USGS Astrogeology Research Program.
↑Généalogie de la famille Pictet de Genève, Descendants de Pierre Pictet reçu bourgeois le 14 octobre 1474, Genève, Fondation des archives de la famille Pictet, 2010.
