Genre:

News-Commentary

Subjects:

Scientific Practitioners, Mathematics, Physics, Mechanics, Discovery, Gravity, Charlatanry

    Notes that Jean-Baptiste-André Dumas has spoken 'so admirably upon the forgeries that imposed upon poor M. Chasles that no more need ever be said on the subject'. (Chasles was a mathematician who unwittingly bought forged manuscripts suggesting that Blaise Pascal rather than Isaac Newton was the true inventor of the theory of gravitation.) Punch notes that Dumas insisted that Chasles had forgotten 'what was due to Huyghens, the glory of his country, and Newton, the glory of humanity', and that the Académie des Sciences, Paris (of which Dumas was permanent secretary) thus associates itself with Holland and England in saving Huygens's and Newton's reputation.