Émilie du Châtelet member of Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna
Institutions de Physique
Her book Institutions de Physique ("Lessons in Physics") was published in 1740; it was presented as a review of new ideas in science and philosophy to be studied by her 13-year-old son, but it incorporated and sought to reconcile complex ideas from the leading thinkers of the time. The book and subsequent debate contributed to her becoming a member of the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna in 1746. Du Châtelet originally preferred anonymity in her role as the author, because she wished to conceal her sex. Ultimately, however, Institutions was convincing to salon-dwelling intellectuals in spite of the commonplace sexism.
Institutions discussed, refuted, and synthesized many ideas of prominent mathematicians and physicists of the time, including those of Newton, Descartes, and Leibniz. In chapter I, du Châtelet included a description of her rules of reasoning, based largely on Descartes’s principle of contradiction and Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason. In chapter II, she applied these rules of reasoning to metaphysics, discussing god, space, time, and matter. In chapters III through VI, du Châtelet continued to discuss the role of god and his relationship to his creation. In chapter VII, she broke down the concept of matter into three parts: the macroscopic substance available to sensory perception, the atoms composing that macroscopic material, and an even smaller constituent unit similarly imperceptible to human senses. However, she carefully added that there was no way to know how many levels truly existed. The remainder of Institutions considered more metaphysics and classical mechanics. Du Châtelet discussed the concepts of space and time in a manner more consistent with modern relativity than her contemporaries. She described both space and time in the abstract as representations of the relationships between coexistent bodies rather than physical substances. This included an acknowledgement that "absolute" place is an idealization and that "relative" place was the only real, measurable quantity. Du Châtelet also presented a thorough explanation of Newton’s laws of motion and their function on earth.
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