Émilie du Châtelet

1706 (Paris) – 1749 (Lunéville, France)

Voltaire, who’d known her as a child, was her lover and intellectual companion for 15 years, following her relationships with Maupertuis (who’d been her mathematics tutor) and Clairaut. She and Voltaire used English to argue in. She consulted Buffon over her translation of Newton’s ‘Principia’, and corresponded with Bernoulli, a friend. König travelled to Brussels with Châtelet and Voltaire, and seems to have been one of the few mathematicians she had a major disagreement with.