Science writer David Bodanis, author of "Passionate Minds", speaks with Dr. Moira Gunn about the scientist Emilie du Chatelet and the Poet Voltaire.
"This is the book I'd wanted to do for years. In my earlier 'E=mc2' I'd found a brief chapter's work about the extraordinary woman Emilie du Châtelet: how she was an important science researcher; a skilled gambler; taught Voltaire much of what he knew; also that she was the only woman the real historical character who Valmont in 'Dangerous Liaisons' was based on fell in love with."


Passionate Minds focuses on the intense relationship between two strong-willed people, vividly charting their quarrels and reconciliations over 15 years. The book describes how the Enlightenment's great rationalist was "bested by a woman intellectually superior to him".

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant admired her intellect, yet sneered that "a woman who ... conducts learned controversies on mechanics like the Marquise de Chatelier might as well have a beard".




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Du Châtelet was married to an older army officer, had given birth to three children, and was becoming suspiciously friendly with two other men. She persuaded one of them to teach her mathematics, but fell passionately in love with the other - Voltaire, on the run from the police for his political views.

Once Emilie du Châtelet settled with Voltaire, the two of them rebuilt an isolated chateau to create an extraordinary research center. It was there that she began her greatest scientific work. Voltaire and Du Châtelet joined forces to produce an introductory and hugely successful book on Newtonian philosophy. Although only his name appears on the title page, the frontispiece portrays her hovering above his head, reflecting Newton's divine wisdom down on to Voltaire's hand as he assiduously transcribes the words of his female muse. "She dictated and I wrote," he told a friend. [The Guardian]

But even more than their scientific work, the poems and love letters that Emilie and Voltaire wrote are the ideal way to trace their entwined lives. Shortly after Emilie and Voltaire met - in 1733 - he wrote the following to her (and, alas, everything he predicted came true):