death_date birth_place birth_date article_title name occupation
7 september 1799 vire 27 june 1717 louis-guillaume le monnier
 louis-guillaume le monnier natural scientist
louis-guillaume le monnier

louis-guillaume le monnier -lrb- sometimes written as lemonnier -rrb- -lrb- 27 june 1717 -- 7 september 1799 -rrb- was a french natural scientist and contributor to the encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences , des arts et des métiers '' .
he was born near vire as the son of pierre le monnier -lrb- 1675 -- 1757 -rrb- , who was a scientist himself and a member of the french academy of sciences .
louis-guillaume 's older brother was the astronomer pierre charles le monnier .
louis-guillaume le monnier worked in physics , geology , medicine , and botany .
in 1739 he accompanied the expedition of césar-françois cassini de thury and nicolas louis de lacaille to extend the meridian of paris and documented mines and the geology and botany along the route .
in the same year , he also began working at the hospital of saint germain en laye as a physician .
he researched electrical phenomena , sending a current from a leyden jar through a wire 950 toises -lrb- about 1,850 m -rrb- long and concluded that electricity propagated `` instantaneously '' in the wire .
later research of his on electrical phenomena was concerned with thunderstorms and the `` fair weather condition '' .
like his father and his brother before him , louis-guillaume became a member of the `` académie des sciences '' on 3 july 1743 , and was elected a fellow of the royal society on 7 february 1745 , of which his brother also was a member .
on 30 june 1746 , one year after his brother , he also became a member of the prussian academy of sciences .
with claude richard he was one of the original organizers of louis xv 's botanic collection at petit trianon , an undertaking quickly joined by bernard de jussieu .
lemonnier was appointed professor of botany at the jardin du roi -lrb- later the jardin des plantes -rrb- in 1759 , filling a spot left by the death of bernard de jussieu 's brother antoine in april of the previous year .
in 1786 he was succeeded as professor of botany by rené louiche desfontaines .
for diderot 's `` encyclopédie '' he wrote several entries , among them `` electricité '' , `` magnétisme '' , `` aimant '' -lrb- magnet -rrb- , and `` aiguille aimantée '' -lrb- compass needle -rrb- .
after 1759 , he stopped publishing , though .
in his later career , he became in 1770 `` premier médecin ordinaire '' and in 1788 `` premier médecin du roi '' .
his lover was marie louise de rohan , `` madame de marsan '' , future governess of the children of france .
his publications include : `` leçons de physique expérimentale , sur l'équilibre des liqueurs et sur la nature et les propriétés de l'air '' -lrb- 1742 -rrb- .
`` observations d'histoire naturelle faites dans les provinces méridionales de france , pendant l'année 1739 '' -lrb- 1744 -rrb- .
`` recherches sur la communication de l'electricité '' -lrb- 1746 -rrb- .
`` observations sur l'electricité de l'air '' -lrb- 1752 -rrb- .
