Emilie du Châtelet

Gabrielle Emilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, marquise du Chatelet (17 December 1706, Paris – 10 September 1749, Lunéville) was a French mathematician, physicist, and author during the Age of Enlightenment. Her crowning achievement is considered to be her translation and commentary on Isaac Newton's work Principia Mathematica; published in 1759, ten years after her death, hers is still the standard translation in French.

Voltaire, one of her lovers, declared in a letter to his friend King Frederick II of Prussia that du Châtelet was "a great man whose only fault was being a woman"

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Individual Note

NOTE: Madame du Châtelet (Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil)

Filleul: Melchior de La Baume, comte de Montrevel 1736-1794

Protectrice de Voltaire

Sources: - personne: H. de La Villarmois (Moreri) 20 xii 2003, F.BBriès maj texte et illustrations 07/07/09 - naissance: H.de La Villarmois (JP Lafond/forum) 16 ii 2005 - décès: H.de La Villarmois (JP Lafond/forum) 16 ii 2005 - mariage 1: H. de La Villarmois (Moreri) 20 xii 2003 - famille 1: H. de La Villarmois (Moreri) 20 xii 2003* Reference: Geneanet Genealogy - SmartCopy: Mar 16 2021, 14:05:56 UTC

The following about the conservation law for total energy. was added by Enders Anthony Robinson. Pascal realized that a mechanical machine expends much energy in operation. With this in mind, he designed his machine to use the force of gravity as much as possible. The “sautoir” is the centerpiece of the carry mechanism on the Pascaline. When it is time to propagate a carry, the sautoir, under the sole influence of gravity, is thrown toward the next wheel without any contact between the wheels. During its free fall the sautoir behaves like an acrobat jumping from one trapeze to the next, without the trapezes touching each other ("sautoir" comes from the French verb sauter, which means to jump). All the wheels (including gears and sautoir) would have the same size and weight independently of the capacity of the machine. Pascal used gravity to arm the sautoirs. Pascal noted that a machine with 10,000 wheels would work as well as a machine with two wheels because each wheel is independent of the others.
Pascal wanted to go all the way to no external energy. Would it be possible to invent a machine that uses gravity alone? In other words, the machine would continue to operate without drawing energy from an external source. It would be a perpetual motion machine; namely, a mechanism that could resist friction and spin indefinitely without an energy source. In Pascal’s Day, a perpetual motion machine was well within the bounds of possibility. Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet (1706-1749) was the first to postulate of the conservation law for total energy. END