Philippe de La Hire

Philippe de La Hire
Philippe de La Hire
Born	March 18, 1640 Paris
Died	April 21, 1718 (aged 78 or so)
Residence	Paris
Nationality	French
Fields	Mathematics, astronomy, architecture

Philippe de La Hire (or Lahire, La Hyre or Phillipe de La Hire) (March 18, 1640 – April 21, 1718) was a French painter, mathematician, astronomer, and architect. According to Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle he was an "academy unto himself".

He was born in Paris, the son of Laurent de La Hire, a distinguished artist and Marguerite Coquin. In 1660, he moved to Venice for four years to study painting. Upon his return to Paris, he became a disciple of Girard Desargues from whom he learned geometrical perspective and was received as a master painter on August 4, 1670. His paintings have sometimes been confused with those of his son, Jean Nicolas de La Hire, who was a doctor but also a painter.

He also began to study science and showed an aptitude for mathematics. He was taught by the French Jesuit theologian, mathematician, physicist and controversialist Honoré Fabri and became part of a circle formed by Fabri which included Giovanni Domenico Cassini, Claude Francois Milliet Deschales, Christiaan Huygens and his brother Constantijn, Gottfried Leibniz, René Descartes and Marin Mersenne. He became a member of French Academy of Sciences in 1678, and subsequently became active as an astronomer, calculating tables of the movements of the Sun, Moon, and planets and designing contrivances for aiming aerial telescopes. From 1679–1682 he made several observations and measurements of the French coastline, and in 1683 aided in mapping France by extending the Paris meridian to the north. In 1683 La Hire assumed the chair of mathematics at the Collège Royal. From 1687 onwards he taught at the Académie d’architecture.