The man who flattened the earth : Maupertuis and the sciences in the enlightenment
Self-styled adventurer, literary wit, philosopher, and statesman of science, Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (1698-1759) stood at the center of Enlightenment science and culture. Offering an elegant and accessible portrait of this remarkable man, Mary Terrall uses the story of Maupertuis's life, self-fashioning, and scientific works to explore what it meant to do science and to be a man of science in eighteenth-century Europe. Beginning his scientific career as a mathematician in Paris, Maupertuis entered the public eye with a much-discussed expedition to Lapland, which confirmed Newton's ca
Electronic books
1 online resource (ix, 408 pages) : illustrations, maps
9780226793627, 9780226793603, 9781282932944, 9786612932946, 0226793621, 0226793605, 1282932942, 6612932945
692205220
Portrait of a man of science
From Saint-Malo to Paris
Mathematics and mechanics in the Paris Academy of Sciences
The expedition to Lapland
The polemical aftermath of the Lapland expedition
Beyond Newton and on to Berlin
Toward a science of living things
The Berlin Academy of Sciences
Teleology, cosmology, and least action
Heredity and materialism
The final years
English