Emilie du Chatelet’s name was originally Gabrielle Emilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil. Du Chatelet
was born in Paris, France on December 17, 1706. Emilie's father was Louis-Nicolas and her
mother was Gabrielle-Anne. She was raised in her house to realize that courting was the only
way to be known in their society. Du Chatelet was very clumsy at a young age so her parents
made her take fencing, horseback riding, and gymnastics to help her clumsiness.
While Emilie was learning her studies at an early age, she grew a fondness of mathematics that
showed her father that she was talented. Emilie du Chatelet was encouraged to study math
more and more by a family friend, M. de Mezieres. Her father allowed her to study more in
school and she soon mastered the languages, Latin, Italian, and English. Gabrielle-Anne was not
proud of her daughter like her husband was; she wanted Emilie to be a well behaved young
lady and didn't care about studies. Emilie was introduced to physics by Bernard le Bovier de
Fontenel. Du Chatelet's parents had parties every night in their Paris home which included
inviting famous mathematicians such as Bernard de Fontenelle.
Du Chatelet's most influential tutor of all was Pierre Louis de Maupertuis. He was one of the
most leading mathematicians and astronomers of Emilie's day. He belonged to the English
Royal Society and the French Academy of Sciences. Maupertuis also was the president of the
Berlin Academy for a brief period of time.
Du Chatelet's cousin had just moved in and she was not happy about all of the attention on her
cousin so she talked to Emilie's mother and Gabrielle-Anne gave all of her attention to ReneeCaroline, Emilie's cousin. Renee- Caroline also convinced Gabrielle- Anne to move Emilie out of
her room and to another room because Renee-Anne wanted that room. Renee-Anne could talk
about fashion and the news, but if Emilie would try to say something, she would always get it
wrong or talk about studies.
Emilie du Chatelet was married at age nineteen on June 20, 1725 to Marquis Florent-Claude
Chastellet who was later made the governor of Semur-en-Auxois in Burgundy. They had three
children, a girl and two boys, but the second boy died soon after he was born.
Emilie du Chatelet along with mathematics was interested in the French court. She soon
realized that she had a great passion for it and soon to sit in the presence of the Queen. Du
Chatelet especially liked the gambling and the amorous adventures. (Author’s last name,
54)Emilie du Chatelet was thought to have committed two unforgivable sins. One was refusing
to give up her study of mathematics and physics, even though she was extremely good at it and
hired the best teachers in France to help her. The second sin was that she stole the heart of
Voltaire, the most facile wit who ever illuminated a salon, and she allowed him to be her
companion for the rest of her life. (Author’s last name, 55)
Emilie's husband was not particularly in favor of her studies. He did not pay attention to her
when she was talking about them and showed very little interest even though she could divide
nine digits by different nine digits in her head. Another reason that he did not approve of her
studies was because of Voltaire. He did not like that Voltaire was with his wife so much and
that he could help her with her studies but he could not.
Du Chatelet first met Voltaire as a child at one her parent’s dinner parties. They met again soon
after and Voltaire felt that he could talk to her about math and physics unlike any other women
in Paris. At this time Emilie du Chatelet had been studying mathematics and physics with
Mauperuis. Voltaire and du Chatelet shared the same opinion that Newton's world view was
very true. I found it interesting and very dedicated that one time du Chatelet dressed up in
men’s clothes and went into the Café Gradot, which was the cafe in Paris that all of the most
famous mathematicians came to debate with other mathematicians and physicians.
Voltaire was very close to Emilie du Chatelet; he even built a gallery and formed a collection of
natural history in her and her husband's new house. Emilie helped design the garden
surrounding the house. He also helped her design a library in the house in order to help her
study with new materials. Soon the two would transform it into a laboratory to conduct their
experiments in.
Emilie became interested in Leibniz who explained his book Institutions de physique which
explained his theories and systems, soon after though; she became greatly interested in "the
Great Newton". She was fascinated in his discoveries and she translated his entire book on the
principles of the mathematics into French. This was unique because this was one of the many
books about mathematics that many people did not understand.
Emilie and Voltaire discovered that a Dutch Philosopher had done experiments and had come
up with the equation,𝐸 = 𝑚𝑐1 which is energy equals mass times the speed of light. While du
Chatelet and her colleges went into more a more detailed experiment, they found out that if
the theory of the Dutch philosopher was deepened, then the equation was actually,𝐸 = 𝑚𝑐 2
which is energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. Now in modern times we have
realized that the speed of light can also be calculated as velocity and use the equation as 𝐸 =
𝑚𝑣 2 .
An example of this equation would be if the velocity of a ball or rock was 100 mph, then they
knew that the energy it carried would be proportional to its mass times 100 squared. If the
velocity is raised as high as it could go, to 670 million mph, it's almost as if the ultimate energy
an object will contain should be revealed when you look at its mass times c squared, or its mc2.
Voltaire was the one who encouraged Emilie to translate Newton's book into French so that the
whole country of France would be able to learn more about Newton and his ideas. Even though
her translated copy of Newton's book was not published, it was passed on to many scholars so
they would know and learn the ways of Newton. (Author of book, 59) Du Chatelet also
translated The Fable of the Bees, a book about morals, into French and also added a few things
to the preface and took out some things from the book.
Voltaire introduced a contest that he was going to enter to du Chatelet about science at the
French Academy of Sciences. The reports were to be about a certain investigation with the
nature of fire. Voltaire had been working on his essay for a long time while du Chatelet had
only worked on it for a month. Emilie had only begun to decide to enter the contest because
she disagreed with a lot of the points in Voltaire’s paper. Du Chatelet kept her entry in the
contest secret from Voltaire because her paper was so well put about arguing that both light
and heat have the same cause or are both modes of motion. She also discovered that different
colored rays do not give out equal degrees of heat. (Author of book, 60) Neither of the essays
won, but they were so well written that they were also displayed on the front page with the
winners.
One of the things that Emilie du Chatelet brought to focus that I thought was very unique was,
that great thinker sometime do not think about the main things they stress about the
unexplainable. She also introduced the work of Newton back into seventeenth-century science.