Émilie du Châtelet (1706-1749) was a natural philosopher and mathematician in the French Enlightenment, one of the most influential philosophers in bringing Newtonian physics to acceptance in France
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Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan, and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Today’s STEMinist was a natural philosopher and mathematician in the French Enlightenment. While her original theories and translations raised debate at their publication, they remain the standard in metaphysics today. She was a contemporary of Laura Bassi, who we covered earlier this week, the longtime partner of Voltaire, and one of the most influential philosophers in bringing Newtonian physics to acceptance in France. Please welcome Émilie du Châtelet.
Émilie was born on December 17th in 1706 to an aristocratic family. She was often described as having a “passionate nature” growing up, both in terms of social pursuits and intellectual curiosity. Though it was unusual for women of the era to go to school, Émilie received an education from tutors thanks to her wealthy upbringing and her desire to learn.
In her later writings, Émilie would lament the difficulty women encountered in education. She wrote, “If I were king, I would reform an abuse which effectively cuts back half of humanity. I would have women participate in all human rights, and above all, those of the mind.”
When she turned 18, Émilie married the Marquis du Châtelet. They had three children together, but the marriage was more of a friendship. In fact, Émilie’s husband actually supported her when, at the age of 26, she met and began an affair with French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire. Though extramarital affairs weren’t uncommon in the French court, Émilie and Voltaire took it an extra step by moving in together-- into one of the Marquis’ old houses. They raised eyebrows in high society, but Émilie lived her lifestyle proudly.
During the 1730s and 40s, Émilie became a pivotal figure in an important shift in Enlightenment France: the popularization of Newtonian physics. At the time, the clergy held immense power in the country, and many philosophers rejected Newton’s theories as pseudoscience. Émilie and Voltaire, who believed otherwise, worked together to popularize Newton’s ideas through experiments and writings.
The two had their disagreements, however, and Émilie often found it difficult to receive the same kind of recognition for her theories as Voltaire did for his. In 1737, the two entered an essay competition attempting to disprove the theory that heat was a material substance. Voltaire wouldn’t listen to Émilie’s concerns over his experimental design, so she conducted her work in secret and sent in her separate essay anonymously. Her essay, along with Voltaire’s, were among the essays selected for publication-- with this achievement, Émilie became the first woman to have a scientific paper published in the prestigious Paris Academy journal.
Émilie also generated original scientific work far ahead of her time. For example, she hypothesized that different colors of light had different amounts of energy and temperatures. That theory was confirmed half a century later.
In 1740, Émilie published The Foundations of Physics, a translation of Newton’s work along with that of another famous mathematician, Leibniz. The work wasn’t simply a translation, though-- in it, she attempted to merge the two thinkers’ logic. It was a feat often deemed impossible, not only due to readers’ nationalistic attachments to one scientist over another, but because their logic systems often conflicted. Newton’s works were rooted in what was actually testable, while Leibniz focused on philosophical ideas. Émilie, who had worked in both fields, was able to bring the two together.
Though she only intended the volume to serve as a textbook for her son, it became her greatest claim to fame. The book was republished and translated into other languages within two years of its original publication and generated heated debate over its content.
After the publication of that book, Émilie turned her attention towards her largest project-- a translation of Principia, Newton’s basic laws of physics. It required her to translate over 500 pages of Latin and intricate geometry, but Émilie took it even further. She included a reader’s guide to the book’s main arguments and practical applications of those theories by her contemporaries. She included 180 pages of her own commentary, and also reworked the book’s key proofs in the language of calculus, which Newton himself had at the time deemed too complicated to include.
Principia was a gargantuan effort by Émilie to help popularize Newton’s theories, but she didn’t get to see it published. Émilie died in 1749 after complications giving birth to her fourth child. She was 42 years old.
After her death, Voltaire lost interest in science, and Principia stayed in a locked drawer for ten years until it was published in 1759. Émilie’s impact on the Enlightenment was immortalized through her work, which was also included in the most famous French Enlightenment text, the Encylopedie.
Tune in tomorrow for the story of another remarkable STEMinist. For more on why we’re doing what we’re doing, check out our newsletter, Womannica Weekly. Follow us on facebook and instagram @encyclopediawomannica.
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