The Cambridge Companion to Newton

This new edition includes three updated chapters, a revised bibliography, new introduction and three entirely new chapters.

Rob Iliffe (Edited by), George E. Smith (Edited by)

9781107601741, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 29 March 2016

530 pages, 27 b/w illus. 2 tables
22.8 x 15.3 x 2.8 cm, 1.03 kg

'Libraries catering for academic work in the history and philosophy of science will most certainly want this book.' Martin Guha, Reference Reviews

Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727) was one of the greatest scientists of all time, a thinker of extraordinary range and creativity who has left enduring legacies in mathematics and physics. While most famous for his Principia, his work on light and colour, and his discovery of the calculus, Newton devoted much more time to research in chemistry and alchemy, and to studying prophecy, church history and ancient chronology. This new edition of The Cambridge Companion to Newton provides authoritative introductions to these further dimensions of his endeavours as well as to many aspects of his physics. It includes a revised bibliography, a new introduction and six new chapters: three updating previous chapters on Newton's mathematics, his chemistry and alchemy and the reception of his religious views; and three entirely new, on his religion, his ancient chronology and the treatment of continuous and discontinuous forces in his second law of motion.

Preface to the new edition Rob Iliffe and George E. Smith
Introduction Rob Iliffe and George E. Smith
1. Newton's philosophical analysis of space and time Robert DiSalle
2. Newton's concepts of force and mass, with notes on the laws of motion Bernard Cohen
3. Instantaneous impulse and continuous force: the foundations of Newton's Principia Bruce Pourciau
4. The methodology of the Principia George E. Smith
5. Newton's argument for universal gravitation William Harper
6. Newton and celestial mechanics Curtis Wilson
7. Newton's optics and atomism Alan E. Shapiro
8. Newton's metaphysics Howard Stein
9. A brief introduction to the mathematical work of Isaac Newton Niccolò Guicciardini
10. Newton and the mechanical philosophy Alan Gabbey
11. A preliminary reassessment of Newton's alchemy William R. Newman
12. The religion of Isaac Newton Rob Iliffe
13. Isaac Newton historian Mordechai Feingold
14. Newton and eighteenth century Christianity Scott Mandelbrote
15. Newton and the Leibniz–Clarke correspondence Domenico Bertoloni Meli.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX], Western philosophy: c 1600 to c 1900 [HPCD]