Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis

Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis was born in Paris on 21 May 1792, trained as a mathematician and mechanical engineer, and spent his career mapping the invisible mechanics of rotating systems. He was the first to call energy transfer through distance "work" - the term still used in physics - and he corrected Leibniz's vis viva by adding the factor of one-half, giving us the modern formula for kinetic energy. His deeper contribution came from analyzing forces that appear only to observers on spinning platforms: the supplementary accelerations now central to meteorology, oceanography, and ballistics. He died in Paris on 19 September 1843, at fifty-one, his effect outliving him in every weather map and orbital calculation since.