Born in Paris, d'Alembert was the natural son of the writer Claudine Guérin de Tencin and the chevalier Louis-Camus Destouches, an artillery officer. Destouches was abroad at the time of d'Alembert's birth. Days after … See more

D'Alembert first attended a private school. The chevalier Destouches left d'Alembert an annuity of 1200 livres on his death in 1726. Under the … See more

D'Alembert's first exposure to music theory was in 1749 when he was called upon to review a Mémoire submitted to the Académie by See more

He suffered bad health for many years and his death was as the result of a urinary bladder illness. As a known unbeliever, D'Alembert was buried in a common unmarked grave. See more

In July 1739 he made his first contribution to the field of mathematics, pointing out the errors he had detected in Analyse démontrée (published 1708 by Charles-René Reynaud) … See more

D'Alembert was a participant in several Parisian salons, particularly those of Marie Thérèse Rodet Geoffrin, of the marquise du Deffand and of Julie de Lespinasse. D'Alembert became … See more

In France, the fundamental theorem of algebra is known as the d'Alembert/Gauss theorem, as an error in d'Alembert's proof was caught by Gauss.
He also created his ratio test, a test to determine if a series converges.
The See more