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Jean Sylvain Bailly Quotes

1736–1793 France

Jean Sylvain Bailly (French: [bɑji]; 15 September 1736 – 12 November 1793) was a French astronomer, mathematician, freemason, and political leader of the early part of the French Revolution. He presided over the Tennis Court Oath, served as the mayor of Paris from 1789 to 1791, and was ultimately guillotined during the Reign of Terror.

France
Academics
Astronomers
Mathematicians
Mayors

Also known as: Jean-Sylvain Bailly

Random Jean Sylvain Bailly quote

5 quotes

The Hindu systems of astronomy are by far the oldest, and that from which the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and even the Jews derived Hindus their knowledge.

The motion of the stars calculated by the Hindus some 4500 years before vary not even a single minute from the modern tables of Cassini and Meyer.

‘It follows, therefore, that the astronomers of Alexandria take from the Indians the primitive and fundamental knowledge of the theory of the moon.’

These observations must therefore have been made elsewhere, and one can hardly refuse to believe that they were made in India where the Chaldeans seem to have borrowed the first elements of their Astronomy.

Even before Jones's announcement, Bailly stated that "the Brahmans are the teachers of Pythagoras, the instructors of Greece and through her of the whole of Europe" (51).

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Jean Sylvain Bailly (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.