On the Genius and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton

2018 ◽  
pp. 73-86
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Universal Gravitation ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
The World ◽  
The Law

This chapter presents George Boole's lecture on the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton. The first subject of importance that engaged Newton's attention was the phenomena of prismatic colors. The results of his inquiries were communicated to the Royal Society in the year 1675, and afterwards published with most important additions in 1704. The production was entitled “Optics; or, a Treatise on the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, and Colours of Light.” It is considered one of the most elaborate and original of his works, and carries on every page the traces of a powerful and comprehensive mind. Newton also discovered universal gravitation, which was announced to the world in 1687 through the publication of the “Principia, or Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.” The object of the “Principia” is twofold: to demonstrate the law of planetary influence, and to apply that law to the purposes of calculation.

Newton and the Laws of Motion

2020 ◽  
pp. 138-159
Author(s):  
Robert T. Hanlon
Keyword(s):  
Circular Motion ◽  
Universal Gravitation ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Critical Moment ◽  
Laws Of Motion ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Universe

In his Principia (1687), Sir Isaac Newton laid out his discovery of the laws of motions and the law of universal gravitation. His historic journey involved a critical moment when, aided by discussions with Robert Hooke, he conquered the challenge of circular motion, e.g. one body circling another, by introducing the concept of force. The Principia was a tour-de-force demonstration of the intelligibility of the universe and ultimately broke physics away from philosophy. This work led directly to the concept of energy.

scholarly journals Bibliography of recent books and articles dealing with the history of the Royal Society

1970 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-133
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
New Haven ◽  
Yale University ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Charles Town ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
James Cook ◽  
John Hunter ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Sciences

Each number of Notes and Records contains a short bibliography of books and articles dealing with the history of the Royal Society or its Fellows which have been noted since the publication of the last number. If Fellows would be good enough to draw the Editor’s attention to omissions these would be added to the list in the next issue. Books Badash, L. (Editor). Rutherford and Boltwood: letters on radioactivity. (Yale studies in the History of Sciences and Medicine, Vol. 4.) New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969. $12.50. Begg, A. C. and Begg, N.C. James Cook and New Zealand . Wellington, N.Z.: A. R. Shearer, 1969. £ 2 5s. Berkeley, E. and Berkeley, Dorothy, S. Dr Alexander Gordon of Charles Town . University of North Carolina Press, 1969. $10.00. Bestcrman, T. Voltaire. London: Longmans, 1969. 8s. Bowden, D. K. Leibniz as a librarian and eighteenth-century librarians Germany . London: University College, 1969. 7s. 6d. Darwin, C. R. Questions about the breeding of animals . Facsim. repr. with an introduction by Sir Gavin Dc Beer. London: Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, 1969. £1 15s. Davis, N. P. Lawrence and Openhimer . London: Cape, 1969. 2s. Dobson, J. John Hunter. Edinburgh & London: E. & S. Livingstone, 1969. £ 2 10s. Eales, N. B. The Cole library of early medicine and zoology . Catalogue of books and pamphlets. Part 1. 1472 to 1800. Oxford: Aldcn Press for the Library, University of Reading, 1969. £$ 5s. Edleston, J. (Editor). Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes . (1830.) (Cass Library of Science Classics. No. 12.) London: Frank Cass, 1969. £ 6 6s. Fothergill, B. Sir William Hamilton . Faber and Faber, 1969. £ 2 10s. French, R. K. Robert Whytt, the soul, and medicine . (Publications of the Wellcome Institute, No. 17.) London: Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine, 1969. £ 2 5s.

Halley’s Atheism and the end of the world

1977 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-40 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Exact Nature ◽  
The Public ◽  
Earth History ◽  
Ecclesiastical Authority ◽  
The World ◽  
Consistent Picture ◽  
End Of The World ◽  
New Evidence

Edmond Halley’s views on theology and natural philosophy have often drawn puzzled attention both from his contemporaries and from subsequent scholars. There has seemed to be a contrast between some public statements he made when under pressure from ecclesiastical authority, and his continued, and privately-held, faith in the over-arching relevance of science (1). However, it now emerges from some unpublished papers which Halley read to the Royal Society in the 1690s that he made public his own debate over such issues as the eternity of the world. This new evidence gives us a much more consistent picture of Halley’s work, and it refutes the view that there were two Halleys—the public orthodox face and the private heterodox one. It is true that the work of Edmond Halley presents us with a picture of considerable diversity. Nevertheless, throughout the 1690s he was primarily concerned with an investigation of Earth history independently of scriptural authority, and this gave some unity to his varied researches. However, there were both ideological and institutional problems with such a programme. The Anglican establishment of the period after 1688 was filled with a sense of threat. This led to a series of statements antipathetic to Halley’s attitude, including a devaluation of the power of unaided reason and an emphasis on the power of God’s Providence. Halley’s failure to obtain the Savilian Chair of Astronomy in 1691/2 was due in part, perhaps, to this antipathy. Yet this failure was also precipitated by the personal antagonism aroused by Halley’s jocular style, and the innate irascibility of Flamsteed. Because of these other sources of controversy the exact nature of Halley’s atheism remains confused. Even his identification with the ‘infidel mathematician’ of Berkeley’s Analyst is problematic. Yet the fact is that Halley took these charges seriously enough to spend several years working to show that one of them was unjustified. He had been accused of believing that the world would continue for eternity, and he was to try and show that it must, in the end, come to a halt.

scholarly journals Halley and the eternity of the world revisited

2013 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 315-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dmitri Levitin
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Unsuccessful Attempt ◽  
The World ◽  
Key Players ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The Relationship

Since the publication in Notes and Records of the Royal Society of an article by Simon Schaffer in 1977, it has been a historiographical commonplace that there was an ‘underlying unity’ to the religio-philosophical opinions of Edmond Halley, specifically on issues concerning the age of the world. This article (i) argues that the evidence adduced for this claim—specifically the account of a lecture given by Halley to the Royal Society in 1693—has been misinterpreted, and (ii) brings forward some new evidence concerning the mysterious events surrounding Halley's unsuccessful attempt to secure the Savilian Professorship in Astronomy in 1691 and the nature of his religious heterodoxy, both as it was developed by himself and as it was perceived by contemporaries. It thus functions as a full revisionist account of one of the key players in the destabilization of the relationship between natural philosophy and Genesis in the first decades of the Royal Society.

scholarly journals At the Anniversary Meeting, November 30, 1844

1851 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 519-538
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Legal Proceedings ◽  
The Public ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Antarctic

Gentlemen, The time has again come round for my addressing you, and for ex­pressing my own gratitude, as well as yours, to your Council for their constant and zealous attention to the interests of the Royal Society. We have been compelled during several late years to have recourse to legal proceedings on the subject of the great tithes of Mablethorp, a portion of the Society’s property, and I rejoice to say with success. In my last address, I was required to give our thanks to Mr. Watt and to Mr. Dollond for the valuable busts which they had kindly presented to us. That of Mr. Dollond is placed at the commence­ment of the staircase leading to our apartments, and serves to indi­cate that his valuable improvements in the construction of our tele­scopes have been so many steps to the acquisition of higher and higher knowledge of the great universe of which this globe forms so insignificant a part. By the liberality of Mr. Watt we shall soon be furnished with handsome pedestals for the busts of his father and of Sir Isaac Newton, the two great lights of British mechanical genius and British philosophical science. Mr. Gilbert has kindly undertaken to furnish a similar pedestal for the bust of his father, and we have thought it right to provide one for that of Sir Joseph Banks. These will shortly form a conspicuous ornament of our place of meeting. The magnetical observatories are still carrying on their observa­tions, both in Her Majesty’s dominions and in foreign countries, and another naval officer, Lieut. Moore, has proceeded to the Antarctic Seas to complete a portion of the survey of Captain Sir James Ross, which was interrupted by stress of weather. That gallant and enter­ prising officer will, I hope, ere long give to us and to the public his own narrative of his important discoveries. Detailed accounts of the botany and zoology of the regions visited by him are preparing under the patronage of the Government, while Colonel Sabine is proceeding with the raagnetical observations, which were the more immediate objects of this, one of the most important voyages of discovery ever undertaken.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, F. R. S

1984 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-49 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
General Nature ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Prime Concern ◽  
The World ◽  
Special Concern ◽  
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Professor of Physics, Mathematics, Astronomy and Natural Philosophy at Göttingen University, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1793. At his death, on 24 February 1799, he left numerous writings of scientific and general nature, as well as many letters and, most important of all, copious personal notes. It is for these that he is mainly remembered. They include reflections on practically all the topics which were of special concern in the Age of Enlightenment. Due to their diversity it is not easy to obtain a comprehensive overview of his ideas and opinions, especially as they are often contained or developed in articles on assorted matters. Many of his themes lost their topicality, though by no means their relevance to Lichtenberg’s prime concern, to understand the world and in particular the human mind, in order to achieve realistic improvements. He jotted down his notes from 1764 until he died, in what he called his ‘waste books’, a term he borrowed from English tradesmen (1). Many of his notes are pointed, witty and unusually candid. Thus they allow remarkable insights into the trends of the last decades of the eighteenth century. They also demonstrate the importance of the Royal Society in establishing Göttingen as the leading scientific university in Germany and spreading English philosophical, literary and cultural influence.

Brighter than how many suns? Sir Isaac Newton’s burning mirror

1989 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-51 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Radiant Heat ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Hearsay Evidence

There are a number of references in the scientific literature to a burning mirror designed by Sir Isaac Newton (1). Together, they record that it was made from seven separate concave glasses, each about a foot in diameter, that Newton demonstrated its effects at several meetings of the Royal Society and that he presented it to the Society. Nonetheless, neither the earliest published list of instruments possessed by the Royal Society nor the most recent one mentions the burning mirror; the latest compiler does not even include it amongst those items, once owned, now lost. No reference to the instrument apparently survives in the Society’s main records. It is not listed by the author of the recent compendium on Newton’s life and work (2). There is, however, some contemporary information still extant (Appendix 1). Notes of the principles of its design and some of its effects are to be found in the Society’s Journal Book for 1704; some of the dimensions and the arrangement of the mirrors are given in a Lexicon published by John Harris which he donated to the Royal Society at the same meeting, 12 July 1704, at which Newton gave the Society the speculum. The last reference in the Journal Book is dated 15 November that year, when Mr Halley, the then secretary to the Society, was desired to draw up an account of the speculum and its effects (3). No such account appears to have been presented to the Royal Society. There is no reference in Newton’s published papers and letters of his chasing Halley to complete the task, nor is there any mention of it in the general references to Halley. The latter was, of course, quite accustomed to performing odd jobs for Newton; that same year he was to help the Opticks through the press. The only other contemporary reference to the burning mirror, though only hearsay evidence since Flamsteed was not present at the meeting, is in a letter the latter wrote to James Pound; this confirms that there were seven mirrors and that the aperture of each was near a foot in diameter (4). Because John Harris gave his Dictionary to the Royal Society in Newton’s presence, it is reasonable to assume that his description is accurate. As Newton would hardly have left an inaccurate one unchallenged, then, belatedly, the account desired of Mr Halley can be presented. In some respects, the delay is advantageous, since the subject of radiant heat and its effects, although already by Newton’s period an ancient one, is today rather better understood. On the other hand, some data has to be inferred, that could have been measured, and some assumptions made about Newton’s procedures and understanding that could have been checked (5).

The Libraries of Newton, Hooke and Boyle

1966 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-55 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

The demand and search for the scientific literature of the past has grown enormously in the last twenty years. In an age as conscious as ours of the significance of science to mankind, some scientists naturally turned their thoughts to the origins of science as we know it, how scientific theories grew and how discoveries were made. Both institutions and individual scientists partake in these interests and form collections of books necessary for their study. How did their predecessors fare in this respect? They, of course, formed their libraries at a time when books were easy to find—and cheap. But what did they select for their particular reading? For example, what did the libraries of the three greatest scientists of the seventeenth century, Sir Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke and Robert Boyle, look like? Fortunately in the case of Newton, the history of his books is now fairly clear, thanks to the devoted labours of Colonel R . de Villamil (i), but it is a sad reflection on our attitude to our great intellectual leaders that this library o f the greatest English scientist, whose work changed the world for hundreds of years, was not taken care of, was, in fact, forgotten and at times entirely neglected.

Isaac Newton: the rise of a scientist 1661-1671

1965 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-139 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Early Mathematics ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
The World ◽  
Experimental Scientist ◽  
Tools And Techniques ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Better Than

D. T. WHITESIDE, the editor of Newton’s collected mathematical works, has recently described how Newton’s creative intellect suddenly burst forth in a scarcely controlled blaze and how his mathematical spirit, till then dormant, took fire in the magical year 1664. Dr Whiteside knows Newton and his mathematics better than anybody else, but all the same we are left not a little bewildered. How could Newton in a few months acquire such mastery of mathematical tools and techniques and such insight into the relevant literature that he might compete with and even outstrip the foremost mathematicians of his time? There may be holes in our knowledge of Newton’s early mathematics. If they cannot be filled, an investigation of Newton’s other scientific pursuits seems called for. This is most easily done in optics where Newton’s own ‘historicall narration’ describes his birth as an experimental scientist, or rather it describes how Newton wished to appear to the world. To quote from the letter (2) Newton sent to Oldenburg and the Royal Society in January 1672:

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