Abstract
On Jan. 6, 1839, a leading Paris newspaper, Gazette de France , scooped its rivals by revealing that the following day, at a meeting of the Academy of Sciences, there would be an announcement of An important discovery by our famous painter of the Diorama, M. Daguerre. This discovery partakes of the prodigious. It upsets all scientific theories of light and optics, and will revolutionize the art of drawing. The article, clearly planted, continued in a laudatory vein about the beauty and detail of the images made possible by Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre's discovery and looked forward to the time when travelers could acquire Daguerre's apparatus and bring back a record of their voyages. On the following day, Francois Arago, perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences, director of the Paris Observatory, famed astronomer, and member of the Chamber of Deputies, read a paper to the academy, reporting for himself and two other members: Alexander von Humboldt, physicist ...
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