Marc Auguste Pictet (23.07.1752-19.04.1825) — a Swiss physicist. He was born in Geneva, where in 1774 he graduated from the law faculty of the Academy, at which he worked from 1776 as a physicist and philosopher.
His main work was on experimental studies of heat and hygrometry. In 1790 he carried out an experiment that proved that there are no “rays” or “matters of cold” and that what takes place is the reflection of thermal radiation (the experiment with mirrors, or with the “reflection of cold”). The experiment was of great importance for clarifying the nature of radiant heat and stimulated P. Prévost's creation of the theory of mobile thermal equilibrium. He tried to measure the speed at which heat propagates. His work also concerned geology, geodesy, astronomy and meteorology.
He was the founder and editor of two scientific journals: “Journal de Genève” (1787) and “Bibliothèque britannique” (1796). He was a Fellow of the Royal Societies of London (1791) and Edinburgh (1796) and a corresponding member of the Paris Academy of Sciences (1803).