Jean-Baptiste de La Chapelle
French mathematician
Jean-Baptiste de La Chapelle (c.1710–1792, Paris) was a French priest, mathematician and inventor.
He contributed 270 articles to the Encyclopédie in the subjects of arithmetic and geometry. In June 1747 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.
He was the inventor of a primitive diving suit in 1775, which he called a "scaphandre" from the Greek words skaphe (boat) and andros (man) in his book Traité de la construction théorique et pratique du scaphandre ou du bateau de l'homme (Treatise on the theoretical and practical construction of the "Scaphandre" or human boat). The invention of the Abbé de la Chapelle consisted of a suit made of cork which allowed soldiers to float and swim in water. As the name and description suggest, it was more of a flotation suit than a diving suit.
Publications
Discours sur l’Étude des Mathématiques, Paris, 1743.
Institutions de Géométrie, enrichies de notes critiques et philosophiques sur la nature et des développements de l’esprit humain; précédées d’un Discours sur l’Étude des Mathématiques, 2 vol., Paris 1746, 1757.
Traité des sections coniques et autres courbes anciennes, appliquées et appliquables à la pratique des differens arts, 1750.
L’Art de communiquer ses idées, enrichi de notes historiques et philosophiques, London, 1763.
“Jean-Baptiste de La Chapelle” enters the record as french mathematician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Jean-Baptiste, Chapelle and French can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1371596. VIAF identifies the subject as 88128935. The Library of Congress control number is n2001060605. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1710, 1792, 1747 and 1775.
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