Jean Le Rond D'Alembert

1994/10/01 Azkune Mendia, Iñaki - Elhuyar Fundazioa Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Biografiak

French mathematician, scientist, philosopher and writer born in Paris on 16 November 1717. Son of the form of an aristocrat, his mother left the church of Saint Jean-le Rond at birth. That's why they called him. Although the child was picked up and raised by a glassmaker and his wife, his father paid him the studies.

When D’Alembert began to become famous, his true mother appeared to him and wanted to conquer her, but the boy gave him pride in refusing saying “My mother is the woman of the glassmaker”.

It can be said that he studied his studies almost alone, as he studied theology, medicine, law and mathematics on his own. He was approved at the age of twenty-three at the Academy of Sciences and dealt with gravitational theory (especially the precession of equinoxes). In this work he advised Lagrange and Laplace.

In 1743 he published his Treaty of Dynamics. It expresses the so-called “d’Alembert principle”, relating dynamics and static. He then published numerous works on fluid dynamics, rigid body mechanics, universe mechanics or partial differential equations. In 1749, for example, he published studies on equinoxes and proposed for the first time the solution to determine the rotation movement of any body, in 1751, the Encyclopédie de Diderot or the famous “Encyclopedia” wrote the introductory lecture, in 1752 they published the work “Eléments de musique”, in 1754 a method of partial resolution of systems of differential equations was proposed. It should be noted that his works on mathematics were published in eight books in 1780. He showed that they were enough complex numbers for analytical calculation.

In 1762 he was appointed secretary of the French Academy, a position he held until his death. Frederick II proposed him to be president of the Berlin Academy and Catherine II of Russia called the St. Petersburg Academy, but did not accept those offers. From the French Academy he tried to help his friends.

D’Alembert collected philosophical works and published them in the book entitled “Mélanges de philosophie, d’histoire et de littérature”. In his thinking he has materialism and idealism. He affirms that it is an objective reality and believes in the development and progress of science, but also recognizes that outside matter the soul lives. He says that it is impossible to appropriate absolute truth and considers God as the creator of the world.

However, it is famous for its participation with d’Alembert Diderot in the famous “Encyclopedia”. He wrote the introduction and the articles, but the work remained in the hands of Diderot because there were difficulties to continue.

D’Alembert died in Paris on 29 October 1783.