Pierre Prévost lived from 1751 to 1839. In 1780 he was invited by Frederick the Great to go to Berlin as a professor of young boys at the Academy of Nobles. He became a member of the Academy of Sciences at Berlin, and his entry dissertation dealt with political economy. In 1784 Prévost returned to Geneva, where he became professor of literature at the university of that city. In 1793 he was a member of the National Assembly at Geneva, but retired after four months. In 1794 he was imprisoned for twenty days by a revolutionary tribunal. Immediately upon his release he became professor of physics and philosophy at the University of Geneva, a chair which he exchanged in 1810 for that of general physics. With Marc-Auguste Pictet, Prévost was the codiscoverer of the moving equilibrium of temperature.