Bernard Forest de Bélidor
French engineer
1698 Born in Catalonia, Spain, the son of a French army officer who died when Bernard was 6 months old.
1761 Died on 8th September in Paris.
He became Professor at the artillery school at La Fere, where his challenges to established theories made him unpopular with the 'establishment', and he was forced to leave France. However he returned in 1758 and was appointed Royal Inspector of Artillery. He became prominent in the field of hydraulics, and is said to have been the first to make practical appliction of integral calculus.[1]
Bélidor is credited with introducing, or at least proposing, a type of swing bridge having as its pivot a concave disc on a convex socket, with a ring of wheels to check oscillation during swinging. The ends of the swinging arms were cut obliquely, and the meeting edges were tongued and grooved for positive location when closed.[2]