Born Lisieux, (Calvados), France, possibly 9 April 1652
Died Paris, France, 1706
Jean Le Fèvre was a calculator for the first official French ephemerides. Le Fèvre is reputed to have begun his career as a weaver. Around 1680, he was associated with a professor of rhetoric at the Collège de Lisieux, who was also an amateur astronomer. The latter had connections with Jean Picard and Philippe de la Hire, who were working on the first French ephemerides, the Connaissances des temps, and Le Fèvre was employed to help in the massive project of calculation of planetary, lunar, and solar positions. On their recommendation, he was elected a member of the Académie des sciences for this work. Besides doing astronomical calculations, he helped La Hire with surveying the French coastline. When La Hire published his Tabulae astronomicaein 1687, however, Le Fèvre accused him of plagiarism, and when La Hire's son was commissioned to draw up new astronomical tables by the academy, a task for which...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Selected Reference
Tissot, Amédée (1872). Étude biographique sur Jean le Févre. Paris.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Gaukroger, S. (2007). Fèvre, Jean Le. In: Hockey, T., et al. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7_452
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7_452
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-31022-0
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-30400-7
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyReference Module Physical and Materials ScienceReference Module Chemistry, Materials and Physics