The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton. I. 1664-1666

1968 ◽  
Vol 52 (379) ◽  
pp. 59
Author(s):  
T. A. A. Broadbent ◽  
D. T. Whiteside ◽  
Isaac Newton
Keyword(s):  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Newton I

scholarly journals Newton and the science of his age

1943 ◽  
Vol 131 (864) ◽  
pp. 207-223 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Method ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Quantitative Method ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Experimental Science ◽  
Small Space ◽  
New School ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Modern Learning ◽  
Newton I

It is my task—my honourable and inspiring task—to say something of Isaac Newton as seen against the background of the science of his time. I shall try to display briefly the position as he found it and to resume in a small space his great achievements and the changes in outlook which they produced. In praising Newton I shall endeavour not to do injustice to his great forerunners and to the men of his time who pursued worthily the same great ends as he did, and who would have held the centre of the stage in any other age than that dominated by him. For Newton, like Shakespeare, did not stand as a lonely adventurer into new realms, though he travelled further and straighter than the rest. Shakespeare was the supreme poet and playwright at a time when poetry and plays were part of the life of every cultivated man and occupied the attention of the brightest intellects. Newton was the supreme scientist in an age when the quantitative method of questioning Nature was abroad in the air. Each was the child of his time. Let us consider the position when Newton wen to Cambridge in 1661. The hold of Aristotle, whose works had for centuries been the ultimate resort of all those seeking knowledge of the working of nature, had been shaken off by such men as Galileo and Gilbert, but most of the learned still thought that those who relied on experiment were pursuing a futile and impudent course. The first resolve of Marlowe’s Faustus Having commenc’d, be a divine in shew, Yet level at the end of every art, And live and die in Aristotle’s works still represented the aim of many students. The foundation of the Royal Society in 1662 had been the occasion of many attacks on the experimental method, attacks stoutly met by Glanvill and by Sprat, and as late as 1692 Sir William Temple’s Essay upon the Ancient and Modern Learning , satired by Swift in The Battle of the Books , set out to prove the superiority of the philosophers of the ancient world over all the moderns. Thus when Newton was a young man the new experimental method of questioning Nature was steadily making its way and the omniscience of the ancients was being called in doubt by a new school, but experimental science was by no means firmly established as a respectable study.

scholarly journals Newton and the science of his age

1943 ◽  
Vol 181 (986) ◽  
pp. 227-243
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Method ◽  
Small Space ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Newton I

It is my task—my honourable and inspiring task—to say something of Isaac Newton as seen against the background of the science of his time. I shall try to display briefly the position as he found it and to resume in a small space his great achievements and the changes in outlook which they produced. In praising Newton I shall endeavour not to do injustice to his great forerunners and to the men of his time who pursued worthily the same great ends as he did, and who would have held the centre of the stage in any other age than that dominated by him. For Newton, like Shakespeare, did not stand as a lonely adventurer into new realms, though he travelled further and straighter than the rest. Shakespeare was the supreme poet and playwright at a time when poetry and plays were part of the life of every cultivated man and occupied the attention of the brightest intellects. Newton was the supreme scientist in an age when the quantitative method of questioning Nature was abroad in the air. Each was the child of his time.

scholarly journals Newton i božanske reformacije prirode

2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 461-472
Author(s):  
Goran Rujević
Keyword(s):  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Newton I

Isaac Newton na kraju svog spisa Optika poseže za pojmom »reformacije sistema« pod kojim podrazumijeva periodičnu intervenciju Boga u postojeći sistem svijeta u svrhu odr­žanja kontinuiranog postojanja prirode sklone propadanju. Oslanjajući se na Holbachovu ideju reda, u ovom radu pružamo interpretaciju Newtonovih povremeno oprečnih tvrdnji o porijeklu i značaju ove reformacije. Naglašavajući sličnosti i razlike između ljudske i božanske spoznaje sistema prirode, dolazimo do uvida da se u Newtonovoj filozofiji prirode mogu prepoznati dvije ideje uređenog sistema: jednostavno uređen mehanički sistem i svrhovito uređen dizajnirani sistem, čija je glavna karakteristika očitovanje prisustva svemoćnog i dobrog Tvorca. Ovi pojmovi pomažu u diferenciranju Newtonova razumijevanja Boga od deističkih, kartezijanskih i Leibnizovih ideja.

scholarly journals IX. Experiments for investigating the cause of the coloured concentric rings, discovered by Sir Isaac Newton, between two object-glasses laid upon one another

1807 ◽  
Vol 97 ◽  
pp. 180-233 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Newtonian Theory ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Newton I

The account given by Sir I. Newton, of the coloured arcs and rings which he discovered by laying two prisms or object-glasses upon each other, is highly interesting. He very justly remarks, that these phenomena are “of difficult consideration,” but that “they may conduce to farther discoveries for completing the theory of light, especially as to the constitution of the parts of natural bodies on which their colours or transparency depend.” With regard to the explanation of the appearance of these coloured rings, which is given by Sir I. Newton, I must confess that it has never been satisfactory to me. He accounts for the production of the rings, by ascribing to the rays of light certain fits of easy reflection and easy transmission alternately returning and taking place with each ray at certain stated intervals. But this, without mentioning particular objections, seems to be an hypothesis which cannot be easily reconciled with the minuteness and extreme velocity of the particles of which these rays, according to the Newtonian theory, are composed.

The Life of Isaac Newton

1994 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard S. Westfall
Keyword(s):  
Isaac Newton

Thomas Reid on the Improvement of Knowledge

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-139
Author(s):  
Christopher A. Shrock
Keyword(s):  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Traditional Religion ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Religion And Ethics ◽  
Compare And Contrast

Thomas Reid often seems distant from other Scottish Enlightenment figures. While Hume, Hutcheson, Kames, and Smith wrestled with the nature of social progress, Reid was busy with natural philosophy and epistemology, stubbornly loyal to traditional religion and ethics, and out of touch with the heart of his own intellectual world. Or was he? I contend that Reid not only engaged the Scottish Enlightenment's concern for improvement, but, as a leading interpreter of Isaac Newton and Francis Bacon, he also developed a scheme to explain the progress of human knowledge. Pulling thoughts from across Reid's corpus, I identify four key features that Reid uses to distinguish mature sciences from prescientific arts and inquiries. Then, I compare and contrast this scheme with that of Thomas Kuhn in order to highlight the plausibility and originality of Reid's work.

Newton and the Origin of Civilization

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jed Z. Buchwald ◽  
Mordechai Feingold
Keyword(s):  
Good Reason ◽  
History Of Mathematics ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Ancient History ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ancient Civilizations ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
One Year ◽  
Radical Ideas

Isaac Newton’s Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, published in 1728, one year after the great man’s death, unleashed a storm of controversy. And for good reason. The book presents a drastically revised timeline for ancient civilizations, contracting Greek history by five hundred years and Egypt’s by a millennium. This book tells the story of how one of the most celebrated figures in the history of mathematics, optics, and mechanics came to apply his unique ways of thinking to problems of history, theology, and mythology, and of how his radical ideas produced an uproar that reverberated in Europe’s learned circles throughout the eighteenth century and beyond. The book reveals the manner in which Newton strove for nearly half a century to rectify universal history by reading ancient texts through the lens of astronomy, and to create a tight theoretical system for interpreting the evolution of civilization on the basis of population dynamics. It was during Newton’s earliest years at Cambridge that he developed the core of his singular method for generating and working with trustworthy knowledge, which he applied to his study of the past with the same rigor he brought to his work in physics and mathematics. Drawing extensively on Newton’s unpublished papers and a host of other primary sources, the book reconciles Isaac Newton the rational scientist with Newton the natural philosopher, alchemist, theologian, and chronologist of ancient history.

A ciência e a superação das desigualdades

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-74
Author(s):  
Galileu Galilei Medeiros de Souza
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Sao Paulo ◽  
Scientific Activity ◽  
São Paulo ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Positive Science ◽  
Popular View ◽  
Science Philosophy

Resumo: O artigo é um ensaio sobre como a atividade científica poderia ser influenciada por uma proposta ética voltada para a superação das desigualdades. A questão subjacente a este estudo tematiza a possível contraposição entre a ética, que parece ser inteiramente vinculada à liberdade humana e seus processos de escolha, e a lógica da pesquisa científica, que ainda, pelo menos em visão popular, parece se basear na posse de informações objetivas e na descoberta de leis de regulação da natureza. Será feita uma breve contextualização das aquisições teóricas sobre o sentido da ciência positiva dos últimos séculos, procurando extrair daí as indicações de uma estreita dependência dessa em relação às escolhas humanas, em virtude de sua metodologia dialética.   Palavras-Chave: Ciência positiva. Filosofia da ciência. Dialética. Ética.      Abstract: The article is an essay on how scientific activity could be influenced by an ethics proposal aimed at overcoming inequalities. The question underlying this study discusses the possible contrast between ethics, which seems to be entirely linked to human freedom and choice processes, and the logic of scientific research, which still, at least in a popular view, seems to be based on possession of objective information and discovery of regulatory laws of nature. Will be presented a brief background of theoretical acquisitions on the meaning of positive science of the last centuries, looking to extract the indications of a close dependence of this in relation to human choices, because your dialectic methodology.  Keywords: Positive Science. Philosophy of Science. Dialectic. Ethics. REFERÊNCIASARISTÓTELES, Tópicos. In: _______. Órganon. 2.ed. São Paulo: EDIPRO, 2010, p. 347-543.BLONDEL, M. L’Action (1893): essai d’une critique de la vie et d’une science de la pratique, Paris: Quadrige, 1993.CARNAP, R. A superação da metafísica por meio da análise lógica da linguagem. In: Cognitio, São Paulo, v. 10, n. 2, jul./dez. 2009, p. 293-309.DESCARTES, R. Discurso do Método. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2001.DILTHEY, W. Introdução às ciências humanas. Rio de Janeiro: Forense, 2010.FANNING, P. A. Isaac Newton e a transmutação da alquimia: uma visão alternativa da revolução científica. Balneário Camboriú (SC): Livraria Danúbio, 2016.GALILEI, G. Edizione Nazionale delle Opere di Galileo Galilei. Antonio Favaro (ed.) Florença: Barbéra, 1928-38, 19 Vols.HESSE, Mary. Revolutions and Reconstruction in Philosophy of Science. Brighton, 1980.HUME, D. Investigações sobre o entendimento humano. In: BERKELEY, G.; HUME, D. Tratado sobre os princípios do conhecimento humano; Três diálogos entre Hilas e Filonous em oposição aos Céticos e Ateus; Investigação sobre o entendimento humano; Ensaios morais, políticos e literários. São Paulo: Abril Cultural, 1978.KUHN, T. La strututtura delle rivoluzioni scientifiche. Torino: [s.n], 1978.LEVINAS, E. Totalité et Infini. [sl]: The Hague, 1971.MACINTYRE, A. Dopo la virtù: Saggio di teoria morale. Milano: Feltrino, 1988.NEIMAN, S. O mal no pensamento moderno: uma história alternativa da filosofia. Rio de Janeiro: DIFEL, 2003.NIETZSCHE, F. Assim falou Zaratustra. 2.ed., Petrópolis: Vozes, 2008.ORTEGA Y GASSET, J. O que é Filosofia? Campinas: Vide Editorial, 2016.PAGANI, S.M.; Luciani, A. (org.) Os Documentos do Processo de Galileu Galilei. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1994.PLATÃO. Teeteto. Tradução de Edson Bini, Bauru/SP: EDIPRO, 2007.POPPER. K. A lógica da descoberta científica. São Paulo: Cultrix, 2001.WHITE, M. O grande livro das coisas horríveis: a crônica definitiva da história das 100 piores atrocidades. Rio de Janeiro: Rocco, 2013. 

On the Shoulders of Giants

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David D. Nolte
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Least Action ◽  
New Science ◽  
Principle Of Least Action ◽  
Parabolic Trajectory ◽  
Leonhard Euler ◽  
New Generation

Galileo’s parabolic trajectory launched a new approach to physics that was taken up by a new generation of scientists like Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke and Edmund Halley. The English Newtonian tradition was adopted by ambitious French iconoclasts who championed Newton over their own Descartes. Chief among these was Pierre Maupertuis, whose principle of least action was developed by Leonhard Euler and Joseph Lagrange into a rigorous new science of dynamics. Along the way, Maupertuis became embroiled in a famous dispute that entangled the King of Prussia as well as the volatile Voltaire who was mourning the death of his mistress Emilie du Chatelet, the lone female French physicist of the eighteenth century.

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