Antoine de Chézy

Chézy was born September 1, 1718, in Châlons-en-Champagne, France. Chézy graduated with honors from the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées and worked closely with Jean-Rodolphe Perronet, the first director of the school. He contributed to a wide range of projects that we would describe today as civil engineering, including the construction of bridges, canals, and streets in Paris. Chézy and Perronet were tasked to assess the magnitude of water flow that could be diverted from the Yvette River to improve the Paris water supply. They sought to predict the flow of water in open channels based on analytical methods. In this pursuit, Chézy built model channels on which he ran tests to determine the factors that influence flow in an open channel. The famed Chézy formula continues to be used in open channel analyses today. In 1798, he became Director of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Ponts-et-Chaussées after teaching there for many years. Antoine de Chézy died October 5, 1798, in Paris after serving as director of the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées for less than one year.

His son was Antoine-Léonard de Chézy (1773–1832), a famous orientalist.