Passionate Lives by David Bodanis is essential reading for those who care about science, literature and the realities of humanity. This is a tale of one of the greatest women in scientific and mathematical history, coupled with the eternally interesting Voltaire. It’s moving, hilarious, fascinating, and staggering in terms of historical content. History always needs “contents insurance” in the form of correcting historical injustices, and this book provides it.
Those who know Voltaire may be surprised to learn that his soul mate came from the class of people least required to have an intellect or even a vocabulary of any kind- The French female aristocracy. Marquise Emilie du Chatelet was everything a French noblewoman wasn’t supposed to be. She was individualistic, highly intelligent, ferociously passionate and arguably at least 400 years ahead of her time, a sort of 18th century Dorothy Parker and Marie Curie, combined.
The actual relationship was based on an extraordinary meeting of minds, as well as passions. Anyone who’s seen Voltaire’s ability to turn a single paragraph into a blizzard of razor blades will be stunned to find that du Chatelet was intellectually on an equal footing with France’s definitive writer. The relationship varied from stormy to sublime, and all points between. Voltaire’s contribution to du Chatelet was to provide the support of a man of letters to a very strong natural intellect and talents. Du Chatelet’s contribution to Voltaire was to affect him like no other person in his life. Europe’s deadliest wit was truly captivated.
(The tale of the relationship is practically an extra book in itself, and a good example of how to add substance to a quite demanding narrative. These were two quite exceptional and busy people, and even the continuity requires a deft touch in keeping the reader oriented. Bodanis keeps things well organized throughout.)
Du Chatelet and Newton
Du Chatelet had one thing in common with Voltaire. She was a true thinker, never satisfied with a mere statement. This is a complex story in scientific terms, and shows her to be as good as Voltaire in vivisecting concepts and finding flawed logic. One of her greatest talents was higher mathematics and she regularly corresponded with Maupertuis. Du Chatelet devoured Newton’s work, and like the rest of Europe, went to work on it.
Du Chatelet’s ability to penetrate mathematical thinking was the key to one of the great breakthroughs in physics. She eventually tracked down the hole in Newton’s concept of gravity, the predecessor of E=mc2. She formulated the results of intensive research into gravity into the “squared” formula for measuring kinetic energy, mv2. That’s where the “squared” in E=mc2 originates. Du Chatelet’s final published paper, Principes Mathematiques de la Philosophie Naturelle, came out after her split with Voltaire and a truly grim series of personal events. She died after childbirth some days later. Voltaire was devastated.
History wasn’t very fair to du Chatelet for a long time, partly because of the bizarre anti-female culture in “enlightened” Europe. Kant, to his eternal discredit, sloppily dismissed her work as insignificant. The results of her painstaking efforts, however, survived, and Einstein vindicated her. The classic karmic fact in Passionate Lives is that Bodanis, who also wrote a history called E=mc2, rediscovered her achievements. A wrong has been righted. Read Passionate Lives, and you’ll have an Enlightenment of your own.
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