Person: Du Châtelet, Émilie
Émilie du Châtelet was a French noblewoman who became important to mathematics as the translator of Newton's Principia.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- The spelling "Châtelet" was introduced by Voltaire and has now become standard.
- In this biography we will call her "Émilie" up to the time of her marriage, and from then "du Châtelet".
- It is rather remarkable that, in addition to the academic lessons provided by private tutors, Émilie was given lessons in fencing, riding, and gymnastics.
- Every night Émilie's parents entertained guests in their Paris house and she would have seen mathematicians like Bernard de Fontenelle there frequently.
- Most of all, however, mathematics was a subject Émilie loved.
- After the marriage du Châtelet spent time in Semur-en-Auxois but she also lived in Paris and a number of other places.
- Before this, however, du Châtelet had met Voltaire.
- They met again on one of the first occasions that du Châtelet went out after the birth of her second son.
- How could a woman like du Châtelet participate in scientific discussions?
- Du Châtelet, however, was prevented from entering on the grounds that women were not admitted but she was not one to allow convention to dictate what she might do.
- It was the marquise Du Châtelet, the woman who in all France had the greatest disposition for all the sciences.
- Soon du Châtelet was putting her mathematical knowledge to use although she continued to have mathematical tuition from experts.
- It was a work which appeared under Voltaire's name in 1738 but one which he states clearly in the Preface was written jointly with du Châtelet.
- Other work undertaken by du Châtelet was a translation of Mandeville's The fable of the bees which is a rather strange work on morals.
- Let the reader ponder why, at no time in the course of so many centuries, a good tragedy, a good poem, a respected tale, a fine painting, a good book on physics has ever been produced by a woman.
- Why these creatures whose understanding appears in every way similar to that of men, seem to be stopped by some irresistible force, but until they do, women will have reason to protest against their education.
- Both Voltaire and du Châtelet submitted entries, although du Châtelet did not tell Voltaire until after the winners were announced that she had submitted an entry.
- Although neither won, the prize was won by Euler, Du Châtelet's Dissertation sur la nature et la propagation du feu Ⓣ(Dissertation on the nature and spread of fire) was published by the Académie in 1744 along with the submissions of Voltaire and the winning entries.
- Du Châtelet worked on a book, Institutions de physique Ⓣ(Physics Institutions) while on this trip and it was published in 1740.
- Publication of Institutions de physique Ⓣ(Physics Institutions) led to a disagreement between du Châtelet and Samuel König who seems to have felt that the work was his.
- Du Châtelet had learnt of Leibniz's philosophy from Samuel König and it had so interested her that she had decided to devote a section of her book to his theories of metaphysics.
- To an extent, therefore, König was right for du Châtelet knew little of Leibniz's ideas before he taught her.
- Du Châtelet's major work was a translation of Newton's Principia .
- Mme du Châtelet based this part on the ideas of Clairaut.
- M Clairaut had the calculations checked by a third person after they were written out so that it was morally impossible that an error would slip into the work due to an oversight ...
- It seemed for a few days that du Châtelet's fear that she would die would not be realised.
Born 17 December 1706, Paris, France. Died 10 September 1749, Lunéville, France.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Geometry, Physics, Women
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
- Github:
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- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
