Jean le Rond d'Alembert (November 16, 1717 – October 29, 1783) was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist and philosopher. He was also co-editor with Denis Diderot of the Encyclopédie. D'Alembert's method for the wave equation is named after him.
Born in Paris, d'Alembert was the illegitimate child of the writer Claudine Guérin de Tencin and the chevalier Louis-Camus Destouches, an artillery officer. Destouches was abroad at the time of ...
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Jean le Rond d'Alembert (November 16, 1717 – October 29, 1783) was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist and philosopher. He was also co-editor with Denis Diderot of the Encyclopédie. D'Alembert's method for the wave equation is named after him.
Born in Paris, d'Alembert was the illegitimate child of the writer Claudine Guérin de Tencin and the chevalier Louis-Camus Destouches, an artillery officer. Destouches was abroad at the time of d'Alembert's birth, and a couple of days after birth his mother left him on the steps of the Saint-Jean-le-Rond de Paris church. According to custom, he was named after the patron saint of the church. D'Alembert was placed in an orphanage for found children, but was soon adopted by the wife of a glazier. Destouches secretly paid for the education of Jean le Rond, but did not want his parentage officially recognised.
D'Alembert first attended a private school. The chevalier Destouches left d'Alembert an annuity of 1200 livres on his death in...
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