Édouard Constant Biot (French: [bjo]; July 2, 1803 – March 12, 1850) was a French engineer and Sinologist. As an engineer, he participated in the construction of the second line of French railway between Lyon and St Etienne, and as a Sinologist, published a large body of work, the result of a "knowledge rarely combined."^[1][2]

Life

Son of the mathematician and physicist Jean-Baptiste Biot, he studied classics and mathematics as a free student at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. Admitted in 1822 to the École Polytechnique, he chose not to enter and pursue his studies alone. In 1825 and 1826, he accompanied his father as an assistant on scientific expeditions to Italy, Illyria and Spain.

Back in France, with desire to ensure his independence, he began a career in the emerging railway industry. In 1827, after a preparatory trip to England, he joined forces with Marc Seguin in the construction of the Lyon–Saint-Etienne railway, whose concession is granted to "MM. Seguin brothers, Édouard Biot and Company. "He worked as an engineer for nearly seven years, using his father's calculations for the levelling of the line.^[3]

When this project was completed in 1833, he decided to enjoy the independence he had gained to study the Chinese language and literature. He attended courses at the school of Stanislas Julien of the Collège de France and soon began a new career. An extensive series of papers, devoted to astronomy, mathematics, geography, history, social life and administration of China, led to his being elected a Fellow of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1847, having already joined the Asiatic Societies of Paris and London, and several other learned societies. His astronomical translations were useful in associating the Crab Nebula with a supernova observed by the Chinese in 1054.^[4]

Married in 1843, he lost his wife in 1846. Unable to overcome his grief, he fell ill and died in Paris four years later at the age of 46.

Works

Biot translated Charles Babbage's On the Economy of Machinery and Manufacture into French, and was the author of one of the earliest works on the railways, the Manuel du constructeur des chemins de fer (Manual of Railway Construction), published in 1834.

Besides his memoirs on Chinese civilization, most of which were published in the Journal Asiatique, he was also the author of a Dictionnaire Géographique de l'Empire Chinois (Geographical Dictionary of the Chinese Empire) and the Histoire de l'Instruction publique en Chine (History of Public Education in China), as well as the translation into French of the Zhou Li or The Rites of Zhou, from the series of books forming the Classic of Rites. This presents a tableau of an idealized political and administrative organization of China in the eleventh century BC. After his death, the publication was completed under the care of his father. Biot's works are still referred to and his translations have not been superseded.

Publications

References

External links

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Édouard Biot