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Roche, Édouard Albert

  • ️Sat Dec 24 2016

BornMontpellier, Hérault, France, 17 October 1820

DiedMontpellier, Hérault, France, 18 April 1883

Édouard Roche is remembered for the study of equipotential surfaces, called Roche lobes, and calculation of the distance from a planet at which satellites will be torn into rings, called the Roche limit.

Roche continued a tradition in his family, whereupon several members became professors at the University of Montpellier. There, he earned his docteur èn sciences degree in 1844 but spent the next 3 years at the Observatoire de Paris, working under Dominique Arago . While at Paris, Roche was introduced to Urbain Le Verrier and Augustin Cauchy .

In 1849, Roche accepted the position of chargé de coursat Montpellier and in 1852 was appointed professor of pure mathematics. The relative isolation of Montpellier likely helped foster the emergence of Roche’s original ideas. He was elected a corresponding member of the Académie des sciences in 1873, but was later denied full membership in the...

Selected References

  • Kopal, Zdeněk (1989). The Roche Problem and Its Significance for Double-Star Astronomy. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. esp. “Introduction,” pp. 1–5.

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  • Lévy, Jacques R. (1975). “Roche, Édouard Albert.” In Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie. Vol. 11, p. 498. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

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  • Roche, E. (1850). “Mémoires divers sur l’equilibre d’une mass fluide.” Mémoires de l'Académie des sciences et lettres de Montpellier 2: 21–32.

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  • —(1873). “Essai sur la constitution et l’origine du systeme solaire.” Mémoires de l’Académie des sciences et lettres de Montpellier 8: 235–327.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Charles University of Prague Astronomical Institute, V Holesovickach 2, Prague, Czech Republic

    Martin Solc

Authors

  1. Martin Solc

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Correspondence to Martin Solc .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth Science, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA, USA

    Thomas Hockey

  2. University of California, Irvine School of Physical Sciences, Irvine, CA, USA

    Virginia Trimble

  3. Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Thomas R. Williams

  4. Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA, USA

    Katherine Bracher

  5. York Univesity, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Richard A. Jarrell

  6. University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA

    Jordan D. Marché II

  7. University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

    JoAnn Palmeri

  8. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Daniel W. E. Green

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