Helder Mendes Baiao

Review of Observatoire de Paris - CNRS L...

The Paris observatory is an absolutely magical pla...

The Paris observatory is an absolutely magical place. It is the oldest observatory still in activity and which allowed incredible discoveries during its use from the 17th century. The great Cassini made major discoveries there and came after him a plethora of scientists, each more renowned than the other and who marked science. It is also in this observatory that the meridian of Paris, whose fortune must have been overshadowed by that of Greenwich, is noted. This meridian is a vestige of the intellectual struggle that French and English have engaged in in the field of science as well. The gardens are beautiful and of considerable size for Paris. I like to imagine this observatory in the 17th or 18th century when the left bank was mainly occupied only by workshops, monasteries and private palaces. There was to reign around the observatory a calm of the most studious with in the background the immense and magnificent city of Paris crenellated with church steeples.