Jump to content
Main menu
Main menu
move to sidebar
hide
Navigation
Main page
Recent changes
Random page
Help about MediaWiki
Special pages
Niidae Wiki
Search
Search
Appearance
Create account
Log in
Personal tools
Create account
Log in
Pages for logged out editors
learn more
Contributions
Talk
Editing
Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle
(section)
Page
Discussion
English
Read
Edit
View history
Tools
Tools
move to sidebar
hide
Actions
Read
Edit
View history
General
What links here
Related changes
Page information
Appearance
move to sidebar
hide
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
==Member of the French Academy== In 1691 he was received into the [[French Academy]] in spite of the determined efforts of the partisans of the "ancients", especially [[Jean Racine|Racine]] and [[Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux|Boileau]], who on four previous occasions had ensured his rejection. He was thus a member both of the [[Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres|Academy of Inscriptions]] and of the [[French Academy of Sciences|Academy of Sciences]].<ref name="GF"/> In 1697 he became perpetual secretary to the Academy of Sciences, an office he held for forty-two years. It was in this official capacity that he wrote the ''Histoire du renouvellement de l'Académie des Sciences'' (Paris, 3 vols., 1708, 1717, 1722) containing extracts and analyses of the proceedings, and also the ''éloges'' of the members, written with great simplicity and delicacy.<ref name="GF"/> Perhaps the best known of his ''éloges'', of which there are sixty-nine in all, is that of his uncle [[Pierre Corneille]]. This was first printed in the ''Nouvelles de la republique des lettres'' (January 1685) and, as ''Vie de Corneille'', was included in all the editions of Fontenelle's ''Œuvres.'' The other important works of Fontenelle are his ''Éléments de la géometrie de l'infini'' (1727) and his ''Théorie des tourbillons'' (1752). In the latter he supported the views of [[René Descartes]] concerning gravitation, material that by that time had effectively been superseded by the work of [[Isaac Newton]].<ref name="GF"/> He is noted for the accessibility of his work – particularly its novelistic style. This allowed non-scientists to appreciate scientific development in a time where this was unusual, and scientists to benefit from the thoughts of the greater society. If his writing is often seen as trying to popularize the astronomical theories of Descartes, whose greatest exponent he is sometimes considered, it also appealed to the literate society of the day to become more involved in "natural philosophy," thus enriching the work of [[17th century philosophy|early-Enlightenment]] scientists. In spite of the inarguable value and quality of his writings, he had no serious pretensions to original scientific or mathematical work, but did not let that stop him from outspoken support for Descartes' proposed conceptions of the roles of vortices in physics.<ref name="GF"/>
Summary:
Please note that all contributions to Niidae Wiki may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see
Encyclopedia:Copyrights
for details).
Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)
Search
Search
Editing
Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle
(section)
Add topic