Dr. J. René Benoît

Abstract

THE world of science has suffered a severe loss by the death at Dijon, on May 4, of Dr. J. René Benoit,, honorary director of the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures, Sevres. Dr. Benoit, who was born in 1844, commenced his scientific career in the study of medicine, but, having attained his doctorate, transferred his attention to pure physics, working first in Jamin's laboratory, where he prepared a thesis on the electrical conductivity of metals. After some years in industrial life he joined the Bureau International in 1878 as assistant director to Dr. O. J. Broch, whom he succeeded as director in 1889. It was at the Bureau International that his great work was achieved. His first investigations were related to the improvement of thermometric and barometric measurements, and were followed by very careful experiments directed to the measurement of thermal expansions, particularly with the Fizeau apparatus, which he greatly perfected, and which continued to hold his interest to the end of his career. Dr. Benoit took a large personal share in the work of verifying the principal series of prototype metres, and executed a number of very accurate comparisons of the International Metre with other current standards of length, including the British Imperial Yard and the ancient Toise du Perou and Toise de Bessel, on which the original French metre and the geodesic measurements of central and western Europe had formerly been based.