Original version

BBC World Service Online

The Forum

Documentaries

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

The programme that explains the present by exploring the past

The programme that explains the present by exploring the past.

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service News Internet

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

BBC World Service East Asia

The Forum: Emilie du Chatelet: a free-spirited physicist

Emilie du Chatelet

27/02/2020 GMT

Emilie du Chatelet: a free-spirited physicist

BBC World Service - The Forum, Emilie du Chatelet: a free-spirited physicist

The life and work of a remarkable 18th-century polymath

A pioneering Enlightenment scientist whose work was unjustly sidelined after her untimely death.

Emilie du Chatelet was esteemed in 18th-century France as a brilliant physicist, mathematician, thinker and linguist whose pioneering ideas and formidable translations were known all across Europe. And yet, after her death in childbirth in her mid-40s she was nearly forgotten, and if she was remembered at all, then as a companion and collaborator of the famous writer Voltaire. 

Du Chatelet’s insights into kinetic energy foreshadowed Einstein’s famous equation and her suggestions for experiments with the different colours of light would only be carried out half-a-century after she’d written about them.  Plus she was a remarkable personality, determined to live a life of an independent woman, often pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable even in the liberal social circles of her day.

Bridget Kendall discusses du Chatelet’s life and work with history professor Judith Zinsser, Chatelet’s biographer David Bodanis and philosophy professor Ruth Hagengruber.

Painting: Gabrielle Emilie de Breteuil (1706 -1749), marchioness of Le Chatelet by Marianne Loir. (Photo by Raphael Gaillarde/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images)

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Forum

Emilie du Chatelet: a free-spirited physicist

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service Online

About BBC World Service