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17 Jun 2002
Arguably one of the most influential books ever written, Isaac Newton's Principia stands as the foundation for much of modern science. Yet, with the release ofeditions of Newton's other papers and letters, scholars are finding that there is still more to learn from and about the 300-year-old book.
A symposium on these latest insights, jointly sponsored by the Royal Society and the History of Science Society (U.S.), was held this week at the Royal Society, 6Carlton House Terrace, London. The day-long meeting was organized by physicists J. Bruce Brackenridge of Lawrence University, Richard H. Dalitz of OxfordUniversity, and Michael Nauenberg of the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Newton was the first to demonstrate that one could mathematically predict the future of a physical system, in essence initiating science as we know it today. Indeed,author John Simmons ranked Newton first in his 1996 book, The Scientific 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Scientists, Past and Present. But while much hasbeen written on Newton and his work since his death in 1727, how he arrived at his conclusions remains clouded.
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