Biography: If the story of Émilie du Châtelet was better known perhaps more people would want to study the sciences in general - and mathematics and physics in particular.
She was, among other things, a successful card shark, a married mother of two - with a Marquis - and a serial mistress of several men, the most influential being Voltaire. She died prematurely at 43, following a pregnancy in the dying embers of her last relationship. Gallantly the paternity of the child was knowingly camouflaged by the Marquis. All of this took place in the higher reaches of French society into which she was born in the first half of the 18th century.
Nowadays her "wild life" is almost forgotten but her work as an original mathematician and thinker is re-emerging, revealing her as a substantial intellectual figure and not just a good-time girl. She studied and understood the principles which Newton had expounded, and carried out further studies that were used by subsequent thinkers. In an informative preface, Bodanis asserts, "The research she did on what later became termed the conservation of energy was crucial . . ., and the 'squared' in Einstein's famous equation E=mc² came, in fact, directly from her work".
But her existence and relevance was nearly forgotten. This book was inspired by a footnote which Bodanis came across while researching Einstein which stated that Émilie had played a minor role in developing the modern concept of energy. Bodanis was intrigued and discovered that she was not merely a minor figure. It was almost inevitable that her scientific insights were not initially acclaimed and when they eventually "did enter the scientific mainstream, the idea that a woman had created these thoughts was considered so odd that the male researchers who used her ideas came to forget who had originated them . . . ". By the end of the 18th century Immanuel Kant was writing that to imagine that Mme du Châtelet was a great thinker was as preposterous as imagining a woman to possess a beard. During the 19th and the first half of the 20th century she was almost entirely forgotten - but her intellectual achievements began to re-emerge in academic circles in the 1940s.
Given the wide scope of her activities, which were played out against the backdrop of high French society - the accepted norms of which afforded women few opportunities for individualism - coupled with the importance of her relationship with Voltaire, Bodanis had a vast amount of material available to him in order to enlighten his readers on the difficulties she faced and overcame. Yet there is a sense that her character has not been revealed in his book, even if her achievements have. Another reservation is the lack of footnotes. The so-called "Notes" are far from comprehensive. For instance, it would be useful to know the origin of Kant's comment.
The good news is that this book is far from the last word on Émilie's achievements; she is currently the subject of various academic researches. But given her achievements in so many spheres Bodanis was right to bring to a wider audience an awareness of this highly intelligent, disciplined and fun-loving woman.
John McBratney is a member of the board of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, and a barrister
Passionate Minds: The Great Enlightenment Love Affair By David Bodanis Little, Brown , 312 pp. £17.99