Jean le Rond d'Alembert

thumb|Jean le Rond d'Alembert in 1753 Jean le Rond d'Alembert (16 November 1717 – 29 October 1783) was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist and philosopher. He was also co-editor with Denis Diderot of the Encyclopédie. Quotes Rien n'est plus incontestable que l'existence de nos sensations; ... Nothing is more incontestable than the existence of our sensations; ... in the Discours préliminaire de l’Encyclopédie. Quotes about Jean le Rond d'Alembert D'Alembert was always surrounded by controversy. … he was the lightning rod which drew sparks from all the foes of the philosophes. … Unfortunately he carried this... pugnacity into his scientific research and once he had entered a controversy, he argued his cause with vigour and stubbornness. He closed his mind to the possibility that he might be wrong... Thomas L. Hankins Jean D'Alembert: Science and the Enlightenment Taylor & Francis 1990 2881243991 236 Historically, Jean d’Alembert precedes Augustin-Louis Cauchy. However, in the context of functional equations, it seems more natural to consider his contributions after Cauchy. Jean d’Alembert was a man of many names. The illegitimate son of an army officer, Louis-Camus Destouches, and a writer, Claudine Guérin de Tencin, he was born in Paris in 1717, while his father was abroad. Shortly after his birth, his mother abandoned him at the church of Saint-Jean-le-Rond. Following tradition, he was named Jean le Rond after the church, and placed in an orphanage. Upon the return of his father, he was removed from the orphanage, and placed with Mme. Rousseau, the wife of a glazier. Although Destouches continued to support his son financially, he chose not to publicly acknowledge his son. In 1738, Jean le Rond entered law school, where he was registered under the name Daremberg. He later changed this name to d’Alembert. Christopher G. Small Functional Equations and How to Solve Them https://books.google.com/books?id=2D2RYbb22nMC 3 April 2007 Springer Science & Business Media 978-0-387-48901-8 External links Category:1717 births Category:1783 deaths Category:Academics from France Category:Atheists from France Category:Mathematicians from France Category:People from Paris Category:Philosophers from France Category:Physicists from France