Émilie Du Châtelet’s Newton

Abstract This paper discusses the first French translator of Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica , Émilie Du Châtelet (1706-1749). It shows how her reputation suffered because as a woman her intellectual capabilities and her attainment in mathematics were not taken seriously and she was overshadowed by Voltaire, although he was no match for her expertise in mathematics. However, her extensive correspondence shows that in her lifetime she had an active intellectual life and was well-connected with the leading savants of her day. The letters shed light on the development of her interest in Newton – and indeed on the reception of Newton in eighteenth-century France. The paper concludes with an account of her Newton translation and the circumstances of its posthumous publication in 1759.