Henri Pitot
Henri Pitot (
May 3 1695 –
December 27 1771) was a French
hydraulic engineer and the inventor of the
Pitot tube, which measures flow velocity.
Beginning his career as a
mathematician and
astronomer, Pitot won election to the
Academy of Sciences in
1724. He became interested in the problem of flow of water in rivers and canals and discovered that much contemporary theory was erroneous— for example, the idea that the velocity of flowing water increases with depth. He devised a tube(Later named the pitot-tube in 1732), with an opening facing the flow, that provided a convenient and reasonably accurate measurement of flow velocity and that has found wide application ever since (e.g., in
anemometers for measuring wind speed).
Appointed chief engineer for
Languedoc, he performed a variety of maintenance and construction works on canals, bridges, and drainage projects. His major work was construction of an aqueduct for the city of
Montpellier (
1753 -
1786), including a stone-arch Roman-type section a kilometre (more than 1/2 mile) in length.
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Saint-Clément Aqueduct in
Montpellier
