Editing Jean-Charles de Borda (section)

==Biography==

Borda was born in the city of [[Dax, Landes|Dax]] to Jean‐Antoine de Borda and Jeanne‐Marie Thérèse de Lacroix.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers |last=Hockey |first=Thomas |year=2009 |publisher=[[Springer Publishing]] |isbn=978-0-387-31022-0 |access-date=August 22, 2012 |url=http://www.springerreference.com/docs/html/chapterdbid/58185.html}}</ref><ref name="Black1958">{{Cite book
|last=Black
|first=Duncan
|date=1958
|title=Theory of Committees and Elections
|publisher=Cambridge University Press
|location=Cambridge, UK
|pages=156ff
}}</ref>
In 1756, Borda wrote ''Mémoire sur le mouvement des projectiles'', a product of his work as a [[military engineer]].  For that, he was elected to the [[French Academy of Sciences]] in 1764.

Borda was a mariner and a scientist, spending time in the [[Caribbean]] testing out advances in chronometers.  Between 1777 and 1778, he participated in the [[American Revolutionary War]].  In 1781, he was put in charge of several vessels in the [[French Navy]].   In 1782, he was [[Action of 6 December 1782|captured by the English]], and was returned to France shortly after. He returned as an engineer in the French Navy, making improvements to waterwheels and pumps. He was appointed as France's Inspector of Naval Shipbuilding in 1784, and with the assistance of the naval architect [[Jacques-Noël Sané]] in 1786 introduced a massive construction programme to revitalise the French navy based on the standard designs of Sané.

In 1770, Borda formulated a ranked preferential [[voting system]] that is referred to as the [[Borda count]].  The [[French Academy of Sciences]] used Borda's method to elect its members for about two decades until it was quashed by [[Napoleon Bonaparte]] who insisted that his own method be used after he became president of the Académie in 1801. The Borda count is in use today in some academic institutions, competitions and several political jurisdictions. The Borda count has also served as a basis for other methods such as the [[Quota Borda system]], [[Duncan Black|Black's]] method and [[Nanson's method]].

In 1778, he published his method of reducing [[lunar distance (navigation)|lunar distance]] for computing the [[longitude]], still regarded as the best of several similar mathematical procedures for [[navigation]] and [[position fixing]] in pre-chronometer days. They were used, for example, by [[Lewis and Clark Expedition|Lewis and Clark]] to measure their latitude and longitude during their exploration of the North-western United States.

Another of his contributions is his construction of the standard [[metre]], basis of the [[metric system]] to correspond to the [[arc measurement of Delambre and Méchain]].
As an instrument maker, he improved the [[reflecting instrument#Reflecting circles|reflecting circle]] (invented by [[Tobias Mayer]]) and the [[repeating circle]] (invented by his assistant, [[Etienne Lenoir (instrument maker)|Etienne Lenoir]]), the latter used to measure the [[meridian arc]] from [[Dunkirk]] to [[Barcelona]] by [[Delambre]] and [[Méchain]].
[[File:Cercle de reflexion img 2600.jpg|thumb|Reflecting circle, on display at Toulon naval museum]]