Editing Denis Diderot (section)

===Scientific work===
Diderot kept writing on science in a desultory way all his life. The scientific work of which he was most proud was ''Memoires sur differents sujets de mathematique'' (1748). This work contains original ideas on [[acoustics]], tension, [[air resistance]], and "a project for a new organ" that could be played by all. Some of Diderot's scientific works were applauded by contemporary publications of his time such as ''The Gentleman's Magazine'', the ''Journal des savants''; and the Jesuit publication ''Journal de Trevoux,'' which invited more such work: "on the part of a man as clever and able as M. Diderot seems to be, of whom we should also observe that his style is as elegant, trenchant, and unaffected as it is lively and ingenious."<ref name=AoV />{{rp|627}}

On the unity of nature Diderot wrote, "Without the idea of the whole, philosophy is no more," and, "Everything changes; everything passes; nothing remains but the whole." He wrote of the temporal nature of molecules, and rejected ''[[wikt:emboîtement|emboîtement]]'', the view that organisms are pre-formed in an infinite regression of non-changing germs. He saw minerals and species as part of a spectrum, and he was fascinated with [[hermaphroditism]]. His answer to the universal attraction in [[Corpuscularianism|corpuscular]] physics models was universal elasticity. His view of nature's flexibility foreshadows the discovery of [[evolution]], but it is not [[Darwinistic]] in a strict sense.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gillispie |first=Charles Coulston |author-link=Charles Coulston Gillispie |title=The Edge of Objectivity: An Essay in the History of Scientific Ideas |url=https://archive.org/details/edgeofobjectivit00char/page/190 |url-access=registration |year=1960 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=0691023506 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/edgeofobjectivit00char/page/190 190–191] }}</ref>