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Joseph Jérôme Lefrançois de Lalande (; 11 July 1732 – 4 April 1807) was a French astronomer, freemason and writer. ==Biography== Lalande was born at Bourg-en-Bresse (now in the département of Ain) to Pierre Lefrançois and Marie‐Anne‐Gabrielle Monchinet. His parents sent him to Paris to study law, but as a result of lodging in the Hôtel Cluny, where Delisle had his observatory, he was drawn to astronomy, and became the zealous and favoured pupil of both Delisle and Pierre Charles Le Monnier. Having completed his legal studies, he was about to return to Bourg to practise as an advocate, when Lemonnier obtained permission to send him to Berlin, to make observations on the lunar parallax in concert with those of Lacaille at the Cape of Good Hope. The successful execution of this task obtained for him, before he was twenty-one, admission to the Academy of Berlin, as well as his election as an adjunct astronomer to the French Academy of Sciences. He now devoted himself to the improvement of the planetary theory, publishing in 1759 corrected edition of Edmond Halley's tables, with a history of Halley's Comet whose return in that year he had helped Alexis Clairaut to calculate. In 1762 Delisle resigned the chair of astronomy in the Collège de France in Lalande's favour. The duties were discharged by Lalande for forty-six years. His house became an astronomical seminary, and amongst his pupils were Delambre, Giuseppe Piazzi, Pierre Méchain, and his own nephew Michel Lalande. By his publications in connection with the transit of Venus of 1769 he won great fame. However, his difficult personality lost him some popularity. In 1766, Lalande with Helvetius founded "Les Sciences" lodge in Paris, and had its recongnition from Grand Orient de France in 1772.〔''Dictionnaire universel de la Franc-maçonnerie''; p. 501 (Larousse ed. 2011)〕 In 1776, he changed its name to Les Neuf Soeurs, and managed Benjamin Franklin to be chosen as the first worshifull master.〔Une loge maçonnique d'avant 1789: la R. L. Les neuf sœurs (Louis Amiable - ed. Baillière, 1897)〕 Although his investigations were conducted with diligence rather than genius, Lalande's career was an eminent one. As a lecturer and writer he helped popularise astronomy. His planetary tables, into which he introduced corrections for mutual perturbations, were the best available up to the end of the 18th century. In 1801 he endowed the Lalande Prize, administered by the French Academy of Sciences, for advances in astronomy. Pierre-Antoine Véron, the young astronomer who for the first time in history determined the size of the Pacific Ocean from east to west, was Lalande's disciple.〔(Seymour Chapin, ''The Men from Across La Manche: French Voyages, 1660-1790'' )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Jérôme Lalande」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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