Born into French aristocracy, Emilie du Chatelet was known as the “noblesse de robe†(the haute bourgeoisie who held high public office). She was remarkably well educated for the time, and by twelve was fluent in Latin, Italian, Greek and German, as well as learned in astronomy, mathematics, literature and the natural sciences.In her life, Emilie published translations of ancient Greek plays and philosophical works, worked on translation of Leibnitz and Newton adding her commentary and explanations of the difficult passages-- her french translation of Newton's work is till the popular version in use-- and made an outstanding contribution to physics with her idea that the energy of a moving object is proportional to its mass and the square of its velocity (E ~ mv20). Previous to her work, it was held by Newton, Voltaire and others that indeed the opposite was the case. Consiquently, when Einstein produced his famous equation for the energy of matter E = mc2 (where c represents the velocity of light), it accorded neatly with du Chatelet's principle recognised from over 150 years before.Voltaire (known for his misogyny) wrote of her, "two wonders have been performed: one that Newton was able to write this work, the other that a woman could translate and explain it."
My Interests
I'd like to meet:
Du Chatelet left, in her wake, a series of lovers in the best tradition of intrigue among French royals— or rather among intellectuals- long before the Existentialists and the French avant-garde.
