Gaspard de Prony

Baron Gaspard Clair François Marie Riche de Prony (22 July 1755 to 29 July 1839) was a French mathematician and engineer who worked on hydraulics. He was born at Chamelet in the Beaujolais and died at Asnières-sur-Seine. He became Engineer-in-Chief of the École nationale des ponts et chaussées, the national school of bridges and roads in Paris. In 1791 he began the task of producing logarithmic and trigonometric tables for the French Cadastre, the geographic survey. The effort was sanctioned by the French National Assembly, which after the Revolution wanted to bring uniformity to the many measurements and standards used across the nation, and his tables were intended for precise land surveys as part of the greater cadastre effort. The tables were vast in scope.