The Birthday of Émilie du Châtelet (1706) — Mathematics of Nature

Émilie du Châtelet was a French mathematician and physicist who translated Newton’s Principia into French, adding her own commentaries that clarified and extended his work. She derived the conservation of energy from principles of mechanics, a precursor to Noether’s theorem. She also argued that the square of velocity, not velocity itself, determines kinetic energy — a correct insight that took decades to be accepted. Du Châtelet was a noblewoman who fought against gender barriers, insisting that mathematics was not ‘masculine’. Her translation remains the standard French edition to this day.