Émilie Du Châtelet - An Essay On Heat - 1739 - #2

This is a plain text transcription of Dissertation sur la nature et la propagation du feu.

For introductory comments, please see Émilie du Châtelet - An Essay On Heat - 1739 - #1.


Transcription of part 1 follows below this page break.
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DISSERTATION
SUR LA NATURE
ET
LA PROPAGATION
DU FEU
______________________
Ignea convexis vis, & sine pondere coeli
Emecuit, summâque locum sibi legit in arce.
Ovid.
______________________

Émilie du Châtelet - An Essay On Heat - 1739 - #1


In 1739 the Paris Academy of Sciences proposed a question: what is fire?  A prize was offered for the best response. Entries were to be presented anonymously. The prize was awarded to Euler.  Voltaire, who had also entered the competition, did not know until the list of entrants was published with the prize award notification that his entry had been in competition against one from his lover.  Although Émilie du Châtelet did not win the prize, her entry was considered so remarkable that, at the request of Réaumur, the Academy decided to have it printed at its own expense.

Other Suns, Other Colors

    It seems to be a law of universal application that if a task is boring and low paid, it should be given to a woman.  Many of the women given such tasks in the past performed them with such skill and dedication that their work has become part of the strong foundations of modern science.  It seems to me to be a matter of great shame that many people today do not know the names of these women.

What Color Is An Orange ?


A question like that, here at science20.com, just has to be a trick question.

It is possible, by the application of common sense arguments, to prove to a scientific level of certainty that an orange is absolutely not orange.


How don't we see ?

Between 41% and 67% of participants, depending on the exact way the question was asked, thought that the eye sent out some kind of ray or beam in order for us to see.

That's not the startling bit.

A Frael of Figs
 - or -
A Handful of History


If history consisted only in lists of the dates when "important people" did earth-shattering things such as kicking the bucket from a surfeit of lampreys, then I would agree with Henry Ford that history is bunk.

However, history at large can run from the present day all the way back to the big bang - assuming there ever was a big bang.

The Posthumous Memoir of Ignaz Venetz #3

... the voice of a faithful disciple of science is entitled to be heard.

My continuing researches on the discovery of climate change show that prior to Ignaz Venetz's 1821 prize-winning paper, the most commonly held views on the earth's climate were either that it had changed once, briefly, as a result of the noachain flood, or that the earth has been continually cooling since it was formed.  It was also held by most geologists that all rocks which were not obviously of volcanic origin were formed in or by water.