Passionate Minds - The Great Scientific Affair
by David Bodanis
Abacus, HK$150
French thinker, writer and troublemaker Voltaire taught Emilie du Chatelet, who already spoke six languages, English, while she schooled him in science, notably Newtonian physics, and between sharing knowledge the pair also spent a lot of time sharing the same bed. David Bodanis, who won the 2006 Aventis prize for science writing with his previous book, Electric Universe, is a 'popular science writer'. In Passionate Minds, he brings to bear his formidable talent for explaining really complicated things so the rest of us can understand them. He is most passionate about Emilie, Marquise du Chatelet, whose reputation has been on the rise since feminists liberated her from the footnotes of history as the mistress of Voltaire, who called her a 'great & powerful genius'. She clarified Isaac Newton's arguments in the Principia by expressing his obscure geometric proofs as calculus. Her work was significant in the understanding of gravity and energy, laying the foundation for later discoveries in theoretical physics. The 'square' in Einstein's e=mc2 is hers. Oh, and there's lots of sex.
