Sir Isaac Newton, 1727-1927: A Bicentenary Evaluation of His Work

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Williams & Wilkins, 1928 - Physicists - 351 pages
Introduction, by D.E. Smith.--Newton in the light of modern criticism, by D.E. Smith.--Newton and optics, by D.C. Miller.--Newton's philosophy of gravitation with special reference to modern relativity ideas, by G.D. Brikhoff.--Newton's influence upon the development of astrophysics, by W.W. Campbell.--Newton's dynamics, by M.I. Pupin.--Newton as an experimental philosopher, by P.R. Heyl.--Developments following from Newton's work, by E.W. Brown.--Newton's twenty years' delay in announcing the law of gravitation, by F. Cajori.--Newton's fluxions, by F. Cajori.--Newton's work in alchemy and chemistry, by L.C. Newell.--Newton's place in the history of religious thought, by G.S. Brett.--Newton in the mint, G.E. Roberts.--Newton's first critical disciple in the American colonies--John Winthrop, by F.E. Brasch.--Appendix : Program of the meeting at which the above papers were presented. Material displayed in the Newton exhibit at the American museum of natural history November and December, 1927.

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Page 160 - I deduced that the forces which keep the Planets in their orbs must [be] reciprocally as the squares of their distances from the centers about which they revolve: and thereby compared the force requisite to keep the Moon in her orb with the force of gravity at the surface of the earth, and found them to answer pretty nearly.
Page 64 - I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
Page 40 - Have not the small particles of bodies certain powers, virtues or forces, by which they act at a distance, not only upon the rays of light for reflecting, refracting and inflecting them, but also upon one another for producing a great part of the phaenomena of nature...
Page 56 - Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external...
Page 20 - I am purposing them to be considered of and examined on account of a philosophical discovery, which induced me to the making of the said telescope, and which I doubt not but will prove much more grateful than the communication of that instrument, being in my judgment the oddest if not the most considerable detection which hath hitherto been made in the operations of nature.
Page 41 - All these things being consider'd, it seems probable to me, that God in the Beginning form'd Matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, moveable Particles, of such Sizes and Figures, and with such other Properties, and in such Proportion to Space, as most conduced to the End for which he form'd them...
Page 41 - For it became Him who created them to set them in order. And if He did so, it is unphilosophical to seek for any other origin of the world, or to pretend that it might arise out of a chaos by the mere laws of Nature; though being once formed, it may continue by those laws for many ages.
Page 42 - Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice.
Page 42 - And if Natural Philosophy in all its parts, by pursuing this method, shall at length be perfected, the bounds of Moral Philosophy will also be enlarged.
Page 32 - ... that the vibrations thus excited are propagated in the refracting or reflecting medium or substance, much after the manner that vibrations are propagated in the air for causing sound, and move faster than the rays, so as to overtake them...

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