Antoine Magnan


Antoine Magnan was a French zoologist and aeronautical engineer who studied the flight of insects and birds for possible lessons to apply to powered flight. He is best known for a remark in his 1934 book Le Vol des Insectes that insect flight was impossible.

Life and work

Magnan was born in the central 7th arrondissement of Paris on 13 June 1881. He qualified as a doctor of medicine and of science, and received the diploma of superior studies in zoology. He became a professor of animal mechanics applied to aviation at the Collège de France, and the director of the experimental morphology laboratory and the aviation laboratory at the École pratique des hautes études in Paris. He was responsible to the ministries of Education, Agriculture and the Interior.

Insect flight

The following passage appears in the introduction to Le Vol des Insectes:
This translates to:
Magnan refers to his assistant, the mathematician and engineer André Sainte-Laguë as the source of the calculations mentioned.

Works