ÉMILIE DU CHATELET

Dec 16, 2025

Émilie du Châtelet was an 18th-century French scientist working at a time when women were largely excluded from formal scientific education and institutions. Despite those barriers, she conducted original research in physics and mathematics and worked from her own laboratory.

She is best known for her translation and commentary on Isaac Newton’s Principia, which helped introduce Newtonian physics to a broader European audience, and for her work on kinetic energy, arguing that energy is proportional to velocity squared — an idea that anticipated later formulations in physics.

Her contributions were long minimized or attributed to the men around her, a reflection of the social and institutional structures of her era that limited women’s recognition in science. This episode of The Science Show explores her life, work, and legacy.