A French mathematician (named after the church of St. Jean le Rond upon whose steps he was found as a baby) who, together with his compatriots Joseph Lagrange, Pierre Laplace, Leonhard Euler, and Alexis Clairault, applied calculus to celestial mechanics in order to tackle the three-body problem—the question of how three mutually gravitating objects move. In 1754, his efforts enabled him to mathematically explain Newton's discovery of the precession of the equinoxes, and also perturbations in the orbits of the planets. He was persuaded by his friend Denis Diderot to contribute scientific articles to the monumental and influential Encyclopédie (1751) but pulled out of the project when the first volume was heavily criticized by the Church. Shortly before his death, d'Alembert almost had a nonexistent moon of Venus named after him by its “discoverer,” the German astronomer and mathematician Johann Lambert (1728–1777). However, he declined the offer when his own calculations led him to doubt the object was real.
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