Given that I ended up in these parts because I wrote about being charmed by Fritz' physics experiments, Voltaire's explanation for why he gave up on physics in this very letter is quite funny to me, though. :D
un jour, en soufflant mon feu, je me mis à songer pourquoi du bois faisait de la flamme ; personne ne me l’a pu dire, et j’ai trouvé qu’il n’y a point d’expérience de physique qui approche de celle-là.
I'm sorry, it is impossible for me to read this as anything but "So I was supposed to write this essay on Fire and I just could not make head or tail of how it worked at all, to the extent that Émilie had to write her own contribution just to point out how ludicrous my science was!" :)
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Re: Diderot and Catherine
Date: 2020-10-31 04:37 am (UTC)un jour, en soufflant mon feu, je me mis à songer pourquoi du bois faisait de la flamme ; personne ne me l’a pu dire, et j’ai trouvé qu’il n’y a point d’expérience de physique qui approche de celle-là.
I'm sorry, it is impossible for me to read this as anything but "So I was supposed to write this essay on Fire and I just could not make head or tail of how it worked at all, to the extent that Émilie had to write her own contribution just to point out how ludicrous my science was!" :)