Conté Nicolas Jacques
Contenu
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Nom
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Conté Nicolas Jacques
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Date de naissance
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4 August 1755
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Date de mort
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6 December 1805
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Lieu de naissance
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Aunou-sur-Orne
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Biographie
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Although not a professional instrument-maker, Conté is included here since several instruments occur among his numerous inventions and in most cases he made the prototype himself. The son of poor agricultural labourers near Sées, Conté received only a limited education but developed with success a natural instinct for drawing and design. His success locally while still a young man as a portraitist brought him sufficient support to perfect his skills in the studios of Greuze and the miniaturist Hall. Migrating permanently to Paris in 1784 he devoted himself to mechanics and the sciences following the courses of Charles, Vauquelin and Leroy. The Revolution supplied the opportunity to capitalise on the skills in chemistry, physics and precision construction that he had thus acquired and he rapidly became a noted figure. If his best known innovation is that of an articial lead for pencils (crayons Conté), his activities ranged from the manufacture of hydrogen for hot-air balloons, to creating and organising the workshops of the expedition to Egypt in Cairo and technical education in the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers. Among instruments of his devising that may be mentioned are improvements to barometers, thermometers, hygrometers and anemometers, a compass for drawing ellipses, a machine for measuring a 30 thousandth of a second, a telemetric telescope and a machine for engraving curves and straight lines specially devised for the preparation of the plates for the account of the Expedition to Egypt. Endowed with a natural technical aptitude which he developed into a high level, inventive skill Conté was an archtypal precision technologist combining manual dexterity with economical and practical design and theoretical understanding.1
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Notes biographiques
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1 Sagnet in La Grande Encyclopédie, with bib liography; Bret passim with more recent bibliography.
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Identifiant
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1430
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ark:/18469/1sv0q