In 1808, Napoleon I (1769–1821), emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815, commissioned a series of official reports on the progress of scientific research since 1789. First published in 1810, this report on the current state of mathematics was written by French mathematician and astronomer Jean-Baptiste Joseph Delambre (1749–1822). A Professor at the Collège de France and Director of the Paris Observatory, Delambre was appointed permanent secretary for the mathematical sciences of the Academy of Science in 1801. As such, he was charged with examining the state of mathematics in higher educational establishments, and with presenting an overview of the progress accomplished during Napoleon's reign in the fields of geometry, algebra, astronomy and geography. This report includes a chapter on the metric system, which Delambre was instrumental in determining via the measurement of the meridian between the north pole and the equator in 1792.
