2014/06/28 by Dora Musielak, Musielak, Dora
Arts and Humanities · Mathematics · Social Sciences · #FOS: Mathematics #Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis #Historical and Literary Studies #History and Overview (math.HO) #History of Science and Natural History #math.HO
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1406.7401
25 pages, 4 illustrations
arxiv created 2014/06/28 · openalex publication_date 2014/06/28 · arxiv updated 2014/07/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
No woman of science has lived a more controversial life nor possessed a most contrasting character than Gabrielle Emilie Le Tonnelier, Marquise du Chatelet. One one hand, she was a woman of great intelligence, a philosopher of science, a student of mathematics, and she was an ardent supporter of Newton and his new laws of physics. At the same time, Emilie du Chatelet was an aristocrat society woman who gambled, enjoyed parties, and had several extramarital affairs, provoking numerous scandals in her native Paris. She was a passionate woman who was at ease conversing with the nobles at the court and with the most renowned scholars of her time. Emilie du Chatelet did not develop theorems and she did not discover new scientific principles. However, she studied mathematics with Maupertuis and Clairaut to better understand the geometrical language in Newton's Principia. In this article, we review some important aspects of this controversial woman of science, exploring her relationship with the greatest scholars of her time.