Giorgio Bidone

Giovanni Giorgio Bidone (1781 to 1839) was an Italian engineer, mathematician and hydraulics experimenter, born in Casalnoceto in Piedmont and died in Turin. He graduated in mathematics and hydraulic engineering at Turin at the age of 23 and in civil engineering two years later, joined the Academy of Sciences of Turin in 1811 and became professor of hydraulics in 1815, later also teaching mathematics and geometry at the university. His mathematical work concerned transcendental equations and definite integrals. In experiments at the Parella laboratory he announced in 1820 the phenomenon now called the hydraulic jump, and in 1826 he gave the first known description of solitary waves, today called solitons. In 1817 he helped draft new laws on the waterways of the kingdom.