Jean le Rond d'Alembert |Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert| Jean-
Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert, pastel by Maurice Quentin de La
Tour 16 November 1717| |Died||29 October 1783 |Known for||Fluid
mechanics Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert (French
pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ batist lə ʁɔ̃ dalɑ̃bɛːʁ]) (16 November 1717
– 29 October 1783) was a French mathematician, mechanician,
physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. Until 1759 he was
also co-editor with Denis Diderot of the Encyclopédie.
D'Alembert's formula for obtaining solutions to the wave
equation is named after him.1 The wave equation is sometimes
referred to as D'Alembert's equation. Born in Paris, d'Alembert
was the illegitimate child 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, and a couple of days after birth his mother left him on
the steps of the Saint-Jean-le-Rond de Paris church. According
to custom, he was named after the patron saint of the