Archival Overview
Foremost French mathematician, physicist, and Enlightenment philosopher who co-founded and co-edited the monumental Encyclopédie alongside Denis Diderot, and formulated d'Alembert's principle in fluid mechanics.
Biographical Record
An abandoned foundling infant discovered on the steps of the church of Saint-Jean-le-Rond in Paris, he was raised by a glazier's wife. He showed extraordinary mathematical genius, being elected to the Académie des Sciences at age twenty-four.
In 1743, he published his Traité de dynamique, formulating d'Alembert's principle reducing dynamical problems to statics. He wrote the famous 'Discours préliminaire' (1751) of the Encyclopédie, organizing human knowledge according to reason, memory, and imagination, and served as Permanent Secretary of the Académie Française.
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Final Resting Place
Perpetual MemorialParis, France