La matematització de la naturalesa al segle XVII

The seventeenth-century scientific revolution entailed a clear discontinuity in the mathematical tradition that goes from synthetic Euclidean optics and mechanics to the program of mathematization embodied in 18th-century rational mechanics, patterned after Newton's principia. The present project aims to study the influence of local cultural factors on natural philosophy in the period from 1650 to 1730. Research will focus on changes in the mathematical sciences, including optics, mechanics and astronomy, and in the intellectual circles gravitating around the French Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society. Particular attention will be paid to the French circles, which shall be studied through the Boulliau collection, an important, largely unexplored manuscript collection kept at the Bibliotèque Nationale.