Henri Pitot

Henri Pitot (May 3, 1695 – December 27, 1771) was a French hydraulic engineer and the inventor of the pitot tube.

In a pitot tube, the height of the fluid column is proportional to the square of the velocity of the fluid at the depth of the inlet to the pitot tube. This relationship was discovered by Henri Pitot in 1732, when he was assigned the task of measuring the flow in the river Seine.