Introduction
Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis was born in Saint-Malo in 1698 and died in Basel in 1759. He made several contributions to science and philosophy and could be considered among the most important intellectual figures of the mid-eighteenth century. Parallel to his military career, he studied philosophy and mathematics and was admitted to the Paris Academy at an early age in 1723. In 1728, Maupertuis decided to visit London, an occasion on which he met many Newtonian figures. Similar to Voltaire, and during the same time, he was thus introduced to Newton’s physics and experimental philosophy. On his return, he continued his study of mathematics under the supervision of Johann Bernoulli in Basel. He was admitted as a regular member to the Berlin Academy in 1746; Frederick II named him president the same year. His health declining, he decided to retire to France and then to Basel where he died.
The Shape of the Earth
The paper that made him famous was his Discours sur les...
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References
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Leduc, C. (2022). Maupertuis, Pierre Louis Moreau de. In: Jalobeanu, D., Wolfe, C.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31069-5_44
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