D'Alembert

Joseph-Louis-François BertrandProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.4

Word count: 286K words
Chapters: 29

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today. D'Alembert by Joseph Bertrand. Author: Bertrand, Joseph, 1822-1900. Language: French. Class: B: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion. Release Date: Apr 4, 2005.

Editor's review

This is a biographical work on D'Alembert written in French by Joseph Bertrand. Bertrand was himself a mathematician, and the book's distinctiveness lies in this: it does not merely present D'Alembert as a representative figure of the Encyclopédistes but also understands his work in mathematics and mechanics from a scientist's perspective. For Chinese readers, the value of this book is that it offers a window into how a nineteenth-century French scholar evaluated an eighteenth-century intellectual—with both scholarly judgment and the tone of the era. It suits readers interested in the Enlightenment, French history of science, or biographical writing, and also serves as French reading material. Note that the entire book is in French and was written long ago, so its prose habits differ from contemporary French; readers with no French foundation are not advised to dive in directly. While reading, focus on how D'Alembert's scholarly identity and social networks shaped each other rather than puzzling over every detail sentence by sentence.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in the Enlightenment and figures of the Encyclopédie
Readers who want to understand the history of French mathematics and the evolution of scientific institutions
Learners with French reading ability who want to practice reading scholarly biographies
Students studying how nineteenth-century French scholars wrote biographies of scientific figures

Not a good fit for

Ordinary readers with no French who want a Chinese biography
Researchers expecting detailed annotations and references under contemporary academic standards
Readers who only want a quick overview of D'Alembert's life and do not wish to engage with the original text

Reading tips

Read the table of contents and opening first to confirm whether the author focuses on biography, scholarship, or historical background.
Jot down clues about D'Alembert's relationships with other members of the Encyclopédie as you read.
When you encounter mathematical terms, first try to understand them from context rather than looking up every definition.
If reading French is difficult, proceed alongside relevant Chinese materials on D'Alembert.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this a complete biography of D'Alembert?

It is a biographical work, but it carries the focus of its author, Bertrand, as a mathematician, and is not an exhaustive chronological life. Readers can understand it as a nineteenth-century French scholar's assessment of D'Alembert the man and his scholarly contributions, rather than a complete biography in the contemporary standard sense.

Can I read this book without any French?

Direct reading is very difficult. The text is in French and was written in the nineteenth century, so its syntax and vocabulary differ from contemporary French. Readers without French are better off first finding a Chinese or English biography of D'Alembert and then using this book as supplementary original-language material.

What is the relationship between the author Bertrand and D'Alembert?

They were not contemporaries. Joseph Bertrand was a nineteenth-century French mathematician, while D'Alembert was an eighteenth-century figure. Bertrand writes about this predecessor as a later scientist, so the book contains both biographical narrative and the evaluative perspective of a fellow mathematician.

Does this edition have annotations or an introduction?

This edition comes from Project Gutenberg and is a public-domain electronic text. The body is in French and typically has no Chinese introduction or detailed annotations. Readers need to supplement background information themselves or use other reference works to understand the characters' relationships and historical context.

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About the author

Joseph-Louis-François Bertrand Author · French · 1822–1900

Joseph-Louis-François Bertrand (1822–1900), commonly known as Bertrand, was a French mathematician, educator and historian of science, born in Paris. His scholarly work centred on the application of differential equations to analytical mechanics and thermodynamics, on probability theory, and on the study of curves and surfaces; he is widely known for Bertrand's paradox and Bertrand's postulate. For twenty-six years he served as permanent secretary of the French Academy of Sciences, contributing greatly to its affairs and to the recording of science. Beyond mathematics, he devoted himself to the history of science and to scientific biography, writing works such as D'Alembert, Arago et sa vie scientifique, and L'Académie des sciences et les académiciens de 1666 à 1793. His style is rigorous and plain, combining documentary value with readability. The library holds three of his works.