Pierre Gassendi - Syntagma philosophicum (published posthumously)
Thanks to its position, the keep was notably connected with the scientific experiments of Pierre Gassendi (measurement of the speed of sound), Claude Chappe (experiments with optical telegraphy in 1794) and Alfred Cornu (measurement of the speed of light in 1874).
Pierre Gassendi (1592 – 1655) was a French philosopher, scientist and mathematician
What survives are an inaugural address, several disputations which were presided by him, and a correspondence of more than sixty letters with leading scholars, philosophers, theologians, diplomats and poets from the Republic and abroad, such as André Rivet, Constantijn Huygens, Pierre Gassendi and Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft.
Resident of the Fondation Thiers, he completed his thesis there titled Philosophie épicurienne et littérature au xviie siècle en France : études sur Gassendi, Cyrano de Bergerac, La Fontaine, Saint-Évremond (Epicurean philosophy and literature in seventeenth-century in France: studies on Gassendi, Cyrano de Bergerac, La Fontaine, Saint-Evremond), regarding the heterodox currents of thought of classical France.
Timing the difference between the seeing the flash and hearing the sound of a cannon shot at a distance, they calculated a value of 350 meters per second (m/s), considerably better than the previous value of 478 m/s obtained by Pierre Gassendi.
Pierre Boulez | Pierre Trudeau | Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Pierre Corneille | Jean-Pierre Rampal | Pierre Loti | Pierre | Pierre Teilhard de Chardin | Jean-Pierre Thiollet | Pierre Puvis de Chavannes | Pierre Cardin | Pierre Bourdieu | Pierre Amoyal | Pierre Huyghe | Pierre Bonnard | Pierre-Constant Budin | Pierre-Joseph Proudhon | Pierre Beaumarchais | Pierre Restany | Pierre Curie | Pierre Louÿs | Pierre Bayle | Marco Pierre White | Jean-Pierre Ponnelle | Jean-Pierre Jeunet | Saint-Pierre, Martinique | Saint-Pierre | Pierre Monteux | Pierre Gassendi | Pierre Clémenti |
Voltaire compared the Hindu treatment of animals to how Europe's emperors & Popes treated even their fellow men, praising the former and heaping shame upon the latter; in the 17th century, Descartes, Pierre Gassendi, and Francis Bacon also advocated vegetarianism.