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Would anyone know a way to figure out who wrote the (rather dithyrambic) review of D'Alembert’s Opuscules mathématiques, vol. 6 (1773), found in Mercure de France, April 1773, pp. 127-132?

It seems remarkable for using the then-novel(?) phrase “calcul des fonctions”, thus:

M. d'Alembert (...) emploie, pour démontrer rigoureusement cette loi, une théorie nouvelle, celle du calcul des fonctions dont il est le premier inventeur.

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    $\begingroup$ Similar fluff in Journal encyclopédique, April 1773, pp. 148-149: “The French Euclid (...) finally tears the veil, and probing the depths of this mathematical mystery by means of the calculus of functions, of which he is the inventor, he puts it into the brightest light and brings it to the highest degree of evidence.” $\endgroup$
    – Francois Ziegler
    May 31, 2018 at 21:41

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It might be very difficult to get beyond conjecture here, but I would suggest as a possibility that this review of the sixth volume of d'Alembert's independently-published mathematical works could be an early piece by Laplace.

Laplace after arrival in Paris in 1769 had obtained his first post by the help of d'Alembert, and in March 1773, shortly before this review appeared, Laplace had been elected as a membre adjoint of the Académie royale des sciences. So it seems that the young Laplace would have been both eligible to write and publish such a review of d'Alembert's book, and possibly interested to do so.

I do not know whether there are sources of evidence that could help to test such possibilities: Laplace was a successor who eclipsed his early patron, and in later life was also known to be reticent in acknowledging some of his 'roots' and early activities. As Michel Paty has noted in Les recherches actuelles sur d’Alembert (2002), the difficult task of historians of science is to bring out hidden or forgotten contributions by taking away those later 'sediments' that have dimmed and blurred them.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks! Sounds like a very good guess — but indeed difficult to confirm (e.g., apparently unknown to Laplace’s bio/bibliographer C. C. Gillispie). $\endgroup$
    – Francois Ziegler
    May 31, 2018 at 20:41

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