page_title: Émilie du Châtelet
section_title: Social life after living with Voltaire
hierarchical_section_title: Émilie du Châtelet / Biography / Relationship with Voltaire / Social life after living with Voltaire
context_page_description: Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet was a French natural philosopher and mathematician during the early 1730s until her untimely death due to childbirth complications in 1749. Her most recognized achievement is her translation of and commentary on Isaac Newton's 1687 book Principia containing basic laws of physics. The translation, published posthumously in 1756, is still considered the standard French translation today. Her commentary includes a profound contribution to Newtonian mechanics—the postulate of an additional conservation law for total energy, of which kinetic energy of motion is one element. This led to her conceptualization of energy as such, and to derive its quantitative relationships to the mass and velocity of an object.
  Her philosophical magnum opus, Institutions de Physique, or Foundations of Physics, circulated widely, generated heated debates, and was republished and translated into several other languages within two years of its original publication. She participated in the famous vis viva debate, concerning the best way to measure the force of a body and the best means of thinking about conservation principles.
context_section_description: Du Châtelet's relationship with Voltaire caused her to give up most of her social life to become more involved with her study in mathematics with the teacher of Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis. He introduced the ideas of Isaac Newton to her. Letters written by Du Châtelet explain how she felt during the transition from Parisian socialite to rural scholar, from "one life to the next."
caption: The chateau of Cirey
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