Encyclopedia Entries
Questions of
coeditor with Diderot of the Encyclopédie, for which he wrote the “preliminary discourse” (1751) and mathematical, philosophical, and literary articles. Discouraged, however, by attacks on his unorthodox views, he withdrew (1758) from the Encyclopédie. A member of the Academy of Sciences (1741) and of the French Academy (1754; appointed secretary, 1772), he was a leading representative of the Enlightenment. His writings include a treatise on dynamics (1743), in which he enunciated a principle of mechanics known as D’Alembert’s principle ( in mechanics, principle permitting the reduction of a problem in dynamics to one in statics); a work on the theoretical and practical elements of music (1759); and a valuable history of the members of the French Academy (1787).
Reading
- Liberalism
- Contributions to liberal theory
- Gambler's fallacy
- Wave equation
- D'Alembert's principle
- Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot
Writing available on the net
Commentaries