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Braille, Louis, 1809?-1852, French inventor of the Braille system of printing and writing for the blind. Having become blind from an accident at the age of 3, he was admitted at 10 to the Institution nationale des Jeunes Aveugles in Paris. Later he taught there. In order to make his instruction easier, he chose Charles Barbier's system of writing with points, evolving a much simpler one from that system. He was interested in music as well and for a time played the organ in a church in Paris. The Braille system consists of six raised points or dots used in 63 possible combinations. It is in use, in modified form, for printing, writing, and musical notation for the blind. See also blindness.

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Braille

Braille, in astronomy, a small asteroid notable because it has the same atypical geologic composition as the larger asteroid Vesta. In 1999 the space probe Deep Space 1 passed within 16 mi (26 km) of Braille's surface, the closest flyby ever of an asteroid. Braille measures only 1.3 mi (2.1 km) by 0.6 mi (1 km). Its orbit is highly elliptical; its periapsis, or closest point to the sun, being midway between earth and Mars, and its apoapsis, or furthest point from the sun, is more than three times further from the sun than the earth is. In addition, much of Braille's orbit is a considerable distance above or below the ecliptic, the plane in which the planets circle the sun. Because of its orbit and geologic composition, it has been suggested that Braille was torn from Vesta, which has a huge crater, as the result of Vesta's collision with another celestial body.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press

Braille, Louis

Louis Braille, portrait bust by an unknown artist.

(born Jan. 4, 1809, Coupvray, near Paris, France—died Jan. 6, 1852, Paris) French educator who developed the Braille system of printing and writing for the blind. Himself blinded at the age of three in an accident, he went to Paris in 1819 to attend the National Institute for Blind Children, and from 1826 he taught there. Braille adapted a method created by Charles Barbier to develop his own simplified system.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

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Braille

The alphabet and the digits 0–9 in the modern Braille system. Each letter or digit consists elipsis

Universal system of writing and printing for the blind. The Frenchman Louis Braille invented the system in 1824. Characters embossed on paper are read by passing the fingers lightly over the manuscript. The system is based on a matrix of six dots arranged in two columns of three. The 63 combinations possible in this framework stand for letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and common words such as and and the. A Braille code for English was not adopted until 1932. Modifications also exist for other languages, for mathematical and technical material, and for musical notation. Braille may be handwritten—from right to left—using a stylus to press dots into a piece of paper between hinged metal plates; when the sheet is turned over, the dots face up and are read from left to right. Braille typewriters and electric embossing machines are also used.

Learn more about Braille with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.