The Academy of Sciences traces its origin to Colbert's plan to create a general academy. He chose a small group of scholars who met on 22 December 1666 in the King's library, near the present-day , and thereafter held twice-weekly working meetings there in the two rooms assigned to the group. The first 30 years of the academy's existence were relatively informal, since no statutes had as yet been laid down for the institution. In contrast to
its British counterpart, the academy was founded as an organ of government. In Paris, there were not many membership openings, to fill positions there were contentious elections. Elections in the early days of the academy were important activities, and as such made up a large part of the proceedings at the academy, with many meetings being held regarding the election to fill a single vacancy within the academy. That is not to say that discussion of candidates and the election process as a whole was relegated to the meetings. Members that belonged to the vacancy's respective field would continue discussion of potential candidates for the vacancy in private. Being elected into the academy did not necessarily guarantee being a full member, in some cases, one would enter the academy as an associate or correspondent before being appointed as a full member of the academy. The election process was originally only to replace members from a specific section. For example, if someone whose study was mathematics was either removed or resigned from his position, the following election process nominated only those whose focus was also mathematics in order to fill that discipline's vacancy. That led to some periods of time in which no specialists for specific fields of study could be found, which left positions in those fields vacant since they could not be filled with people in other disciplines. The needed reform came late in the 20th century, in 1987, when the academy decided against the practice and to begin filling vacancies with people with new disciplines. This reform was not only aimed at further diversifying the disciplines under the academy, but also to help combat the internal aging of the academy itself. The academy was expected to remain apolitical, and to avoid discussion of religious and social issues. visiting the Royal Academy of Sciences (Sébastien Leclerc I, France, 1671) On 20 January 1699, LouisXIV gave the Company its first rules. The academy received the name of
Royal Academy of Sciences and was installed in the
Louvre in Paris. Following this reform, the academy began publishing a volume each year with information on all the work done by its members and obituaries for members who had died. This reform also codified the method by which members of the academy could receive pensions for their work. The academy was originally organized by the royal reform hierarchically into the following groups: Pensionaires, Pupils, Honoraires, and Associés. The reform also added new groups not previously recognized, such as Vétéran. Some of these role's member limits were expanded and some roles even removed or combined throughout the course of academy's history. The Honoraires group establish by this reform in 1699 whose members were directly appointed by the King was recognized until its abolishment in 1793. Membership in the academy exceeded 100 officially-recognised full members only in 1976, 310 years after the academy's inception in 1666. The membership increase came with a large-scale reorganization in 1976. Under this reorganization, 130 resident members, 160 correspondents, and 80 foreign associates could be elected. A vacancy opens only upon the death of members, as they serve for life. During elections, half of the vacancies are reserved for people less than 55 years old. The last two sections are bundled since there were many good candidates fit to be elected for those practices, and the competition was stiff. Some individuals like
François Magendie had made stellar advancements in their selected fields of study, that warranted a possible addition of new fields. However, even someone like Magendie, who had made breakthroughs in
physiology and impressed the academy with his hands-on
vivisection experiments, could not get his study into its own category. Almost all the old members of the previously abolished Académie were formally re-elected and retook their ancient seats. Among the exceptions was
Dominique, comte de Cassini, who refused to take his seat. Membership in the academy was not restricted to scientists: in 1798
Napoleon Bonaparte was elected a member of the academy and three years later a president in connection with his
Egyptian expedition, which had a scientific component. In 1816, the again renamed "Royal Academy of Sciences" became autonomous, while forming part of the
Institute of France; the head of State became its patron. In the
Second Republic, the name returned to Académie des sciences. During this period, the academy was funded by and accountable to the
Ministry of Public Instruction. The academy came to control French patent laws in the course of the eighteenth century, acting as the liaison of artisans' knowledge to the public domain. As a result,
academicians dominated technological activities in France. The academy proceedings were published under the name (1835–1965). The is now a journal series with seven titles. The publications can be found on site of the
French National Library. In 1818 the French Academy of Sciences launched a competition to explain the properties of light. The civil engineer
Augustin-Jean Fresnel entered the competition by submitting a new
wave theory of light.
Siméon Denis Poisson, one of the members of the judging committee, studied Fresnel's theory in detail. Being a supporter of the particle-theory of light, he looked for a way to disprove it. Poisson thought that he had found a flaw when he demonstrate that Fresnel's theory predicts that an on-axis bright spot would exist in the shadow of a circular obstacle, where there should be complete darkness according to the particle-theory of light. The
Poisson spot is not easily observed in every-day situations and so it was only natural for Poisson to interpret it as an absurd result and that it should disprove Fresnel's theory. However, the head of the committee,
Dominique-François-Jean Arago, and who incidentally later became Prime Minister of France, decided to perform the experiment in more detail. He molded a 2-mm metallic disk to a glass plate with wax. To everyone's surprise he succeeded in observing the predicted spot, which convinced most scientists of the wave-nature of light. (1737) where was published For three centuries women were not allowed as members of the academy. This meant that many women scientists were excluded, including two-time Nobel Prize winner
Marie Curie, Nobel winner
Irène Joliot-Curie, mathematician
Sophie Germain, and many other deserving women scientists. The first woman admitted as a correspondent member was a student of Curie's,
Marguerite Perey, in 1962. The first female full member was
Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat in 1979. == Government interference ==