Science and Glory —Dominique François Arago
Throughout his career as scientist and politician, François Arago carried the banner for science as the engine of Progress. Napoleon Bonaparte, the first emperor of France, bestowed this banner on French engineers in a ceremony on December 3, 1804. The banner bears the motto of the Ecole Polytechnique, training ground of France’s elite corps of engineers: “Pour la Patrie, les Sciences et la Gloire” (For Homeland, Science and Glory). As the school’s highest ranking student, it was Arago who received the banner from the emperor’s hand.
Arago later served on the faculty of the Ecole Polytechnique, as a member of the Bureau of Longitude, which had responsibility for establishing the metric system of weights and measures, and as director of the Paris Observatory, where he conducted a very popular lecture series explaining the latest advances of science to the general public. Arago was elected Permanent Secretary of the mathematics section of the Royal Academy of Science, Following the death of Joseph Fourier in May 1830. Later, he would enter politics and serve briefly as president of the French national government.
Francois Arago, astronomer, is one of the 72 scientists and engineers named on the Eiffel Tower.
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