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Émilie du Châtelet, an 18th-century French mathematician, translated Isaac Newton's Principia from Latin into French and added a long commentary explaining his physics. Published after her death, it is still the standard French translation.

Émilie du Châtelet

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The story behind the card

The Principia, published in 1687, is the book in which Newton set out his laws of motion and gravity, in Latin. Du Châtelet read Latin, Italian, Greek and German from childhood. From the mid-1730s she lived and worked with the writer Voltaire at Cirey, her husband's château in north-eastern France, where the two studied Newton together. In 1740 she published her own book on physics, Institutions de Physique. She took part in the debate over vis viva, or 'living force', supporting the view that a moving body's force depends on its mass times the square of its speed, close to today's idea of kinetic energy. She began the Principia translation in 1745 and worked on it intensely while pregnant, finishing shortly before she died in September 1749, days after giving birth, aged 42. It appeared in 1756, and in full in 1759.

Türkçe oku
18. yüzyılda yaşamış Fransız matematikçi Émilie du Châtelet, Isaac Newton'ın Principia adlı eserini Latinceden Fransızcaya çevirdi ve Newton'ın fiziğini açıklayan uzun bir yorum ekledi. Ölümünden sonra yayımlanan bu çeviri, bugün de Fransızcadaki standart çeviri sayılıyor.

Principia, Newton'ın hareket yasalarını ve kütle çekimini ortaya koyduğu, 1687'de Latince yayımlanan kitabıdır. Du Châtelet, çocukluğundan beri Latince, İtalyanca, Yunanca ve Almanca okuyordu. 1730'ların ortasından itibaren yazar Voltaire'le birlikte, eşinin Kuzeydoğu Fransa'daki şatosu Cirey'de yaşayıp çalıştı; ikisi Newton'ı orada birlikte inceledi. 1740'ta fizik üzerine kendi kitabı Institutions de Physique'i (Fiziğin Temelleri) yayımladı. Vis viva, yani “canlı kuvvet” tartışmasına katıldı ve hareket eden bir cismin kuvvetinin kütlesi ile hızının karesinin çarpımına bağlı olduğu görüşünü savundu; bu, bugünkü kinetik enerji kavramına çok yakındır. Principia çevirisine 1745'te başladı, hamileyken de yoğun biçimde çalıştı ve işi, Eylül 1749'da doğumdan birkaç gün sonra 42 yaşında ölmeden kısa süre önce bitirdi. Çeviri 1756'da, tam hâli ise 1759'da yayımlandı.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Émilie du Châtelet
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