Jacques Alexandre César Charles was a French inventor, scientist, mathematician, and balloonist.
Charles wrote almost nothing about mathematics, and most of what has been credited to him was due to mistaking him with another Jacques Charles, also a member of the Paris Academy of Sciences, entering on 12 May 1785. He was sometimes called Charles the Geometer.
Portrait by Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, c. 1798
The balloon built by Charles and the Robert brothers is attacked by terrified villagers in Gonesse. Some of them even started attacking him because they weren't used to things flying.
Contemporary illustration of the first flight by Charles with Nicolas-Louis Robert, 1 December 1783. Viewed from the Place de la Concorde to the Tuileries Palace (destroyed in 1871)
Meusnier's dirigible
In aeronautics, a balloon is an unpowered aerostat, which remains aloft or floats due to its buoyancy. A balloon may be free, moving with the wind, or tethered to a fixed point. It is distinct from an airship, which is a powered aerostat that can propel itself through the air in a controlled manner.
A hot air balloon in flight
In 1999, Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones achieved the first non-stop balloon circumnavigation in Breitling Orbiter 3.
"Aerostation out at Elbows, or The Itinerant Aeronaut" print illustration and poem (1785)
Hot air balloons, San Diego
