Jean le Rond d'Alembert 1717 – 1783
Jean le Rond d'Alembert was a French mathematician, physicist, and Enlightenment philosopher and the co-editor with Diderot of the Encyclopedie. His Preliminary Discourse to that work surveyed the unity and history of human knowledge, while his contributions to mathematical physics, including d'Alembert's principle in mechanics, established him as one of the leading scientific thinkers of his age. He maintained a long correspondence with Frederick the Great and was for two decades the perpetual secretary of the Academie francaise.
Key facts
- Nationality
- French
- Era
- Modern
- Movements
- Enlightenment
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Jean le Rond d'Alembert:
“All the sciences flow into one another.”
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Attributed to Jean le Rond d'Alembert:
“Skepticism is the first virtue of the philosopher.”
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Attributed to Jean le Rond d'Alembert:
“Geometry is the truest of the sciences.”
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Attributed to Jean le Rond d'Alembert:
“The unity of human knowledge is the philosophical aim of the Encyclopedie.”
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Attributed to Jean le Rond d'Alembert:
“All certainty in physics depends on a few principles which we owe to experience.”