Joseph-Émile Barbier (1839–1889) was a French astronomer and mathematician, known for Barbier's theorem on the perimeter of curves of constant width. Barbier was born on 18 March 1839 in Saint-Hilaire-Cottes, Pas-de-Calais, in the north of France.He studied at the College of Saint-Omer, also in Pas-de-Calais, and then at the Lycée Henri-IV in Paris. He entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1857, and finished his studies there in 1860, the same year in which he published the paper containing his theorem on constant-width curves. In this paper he also presented a solution to Buffon's needle problem, known as Buffon's noodle, that avoided the use of integrals.