The Parachute, a French Invention of Distant Siamese Origin

Authors

  • Olivier de Bernon École française d’Extrême-Orient

Abstract

The invention of the parachute, belongs to the French physicist Louis-Sébastien Lenormand, born in Montpellier on May 25, 1757. The idea arose in his mind while reading a passage of the Description of the Kingdom of Siam of Simon de La Loubère, envoy extraordinary of King Louis XIV to the court of King Phra Narai in Ayutthaya. On December 26, 1783, provided with a paraphernalia of parasols and rods, Lenormand launched himself from the top of a six-meter tree and verified the softness of a fall which was comparable to the acrobatics witnessed by La Loubère. He immediately undertook the calculations of air resistance, of volumes, and of the appropriate surfaces for a parachute veil to obtain the slowest descent. In doing so, he transformed an acrobatic entertainment into an experiment in physical mechanics : the invention of the parachute had taken place.

Author Biography

Olivier de Bernon, École française d’Extrême-Orient

Olivier de Bernon is Professor at the French School of Asian Studies (EFEO) under the framework of which he has run a manuscript conservation project in Cambodia since 1990. He has also been in charge of the personal archives of King Norodom Sihanouk, of which he published the inventory in 2010. Promoted General Curator of Heritage, he headed Musée National des Arts Asiatiques Guimet in Paris from 2011 to 2013. Since 2013, he has been in charge of a program to produce an edition of ancient Cambodian legal texts under the aegis of EFEO and the Royal Government of Cambodia.

References

Bertholon [De Saint Lazare], Pierre. 1784. Avantages que la physique et les arts qui en dépendent peuvent extraire des globes aérostatiques, Montpellier: de l’imprimerie de Jean Martel aîné.
Blanchard, Jean-Pierre. 1791. Analyse de la nouvelle machine aërostatique que j’ai inventée et exécutée à Varsovie pendant l’année 1789 et 1790. Berlin: Chez G.J. Decker et fils.
La Loubère, Simon de. 1691. Du Royaume de Siam par Monsieur de La Loubère, envoyé extraordinaire du Roy auprès du Roy de Siam en 1687 et 1688. Paris: Chez Jean-Baptiste Coignard.
La Loubère, Simon de. 1693. A New Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Siam by Monsieur de La Loubere, Envoy Extraordinary from the French King, to the King of Siam, in the years 1687 and 1688, Wherein a full and curious Account is given of Chinese Way of Arithmetick, and Mathematick Learning. London: Printed by F.L. for Tho. Horn at the Royal Exchange. [Reprinted 1986, Oxford University Press.]
Prieur-Duvernois, Claude-Antoine. 1800. “Réclamation relative à l’invention des parachûtes” in Annales de Chimie ou recueil de mémoires concernant la chimie les arts qui en dépendent et spécialement la pharmacie, livraison du 30 Vendémiaire An 9, vol. 36 [22 October

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Published

2021-12-01

Issue

Vol. 109 No. 2 (2021)

Section

Articles