Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis was a French mathematician, philosopher and man of letters. He became the Director of the Académie des Sciences, and the first President of the Prussian Academy of Science, at the invitation of Frederick the Great.
Maupertuis, wearing "lapmudes" from his Lapland expedition. With one hand he is pressing on the globe, making it oblate. Line engraving by J. Daullé, 1741, after R. Levrac-Tournières, 1737.
Commemorating stamp of the French Geodesic Mission to Lapland.
Maupertuisiana (1753), published anonymously by Voltaire or König. On the cover is represented Don Quixote (Maupertuis) attacking the windmills with the broken lance and exclaiming "Tremoleu!". Underneath there is Sancho Panza (Euler) riding a saddle, while to the right a satyr exclaims: "This is how you get to the stars!"
Lettres
Prussian Academy of Sciences
The Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences was an academy established in Berlin, Germany on 11 July 1700, four years after the Prussian Academy of Arts, or "Arts Academy," to which "Berlin Academy" may also refer. In the 18th century, when French was the language of science and culture, it was a French-language institution.
Entrance to the former Prussian Academy of Sciences on Unter Den Linden 8. Today it houses the Berlin State Library.
