The Investigation of Difficult Things
Essays on Newton and the History of the Exact Sciences in Honour of D. T. Whiteside

A collection of scholarly essays on Newton and the history of the exact sciences.

Peter M. Harman (Edited by), Alan E. Shapiro (Edited by)

9780521892667, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 7 November 2002

548 pages, 87 b/w illus. 10 tables
23.9 x 19.1 x 3.1 cm, 0.93 kg

'… presents methodologically sophisticated papers whose relevance for the general history of science no historian will doubt.' British Journal for the History of Science

A collection of twenty original essays on the history of science and mathematics. The topics covered embrace the main themes of Whiteside's scholarly work, emphasising Newtonian topics: mathematics and astronomy to Newton; Newton's manuscripts; Newton's Principia; Newton and eighteenth-century mathematics and physics; after Newton: optics and dynamics. The focus of these themes gives the volume considerable coherence. This volume of essays makes available important original work on Newton and the history of the exact sciences. This volume has been published in honour of D. T. Whiteside, famous for his edition of The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton.

Part I. Mathematics and Astronomy to Newton: 1. Lunar velocity in the Ptolemaic tradition Bernard R. Goldstein
2. The Sciametria from Kepler's Hipparchus N. M. Swerdlow
3. Descartes, Pappus' problem, and the Cartesian parabola Henk Bos
4. Honoré Fabry E. A. Fellman
Part II. Newton's Manuscripts: 5. Sotheby's Keyens and Yahuda P. E. Spargo: 6. De Scriptoribus chemicis Karin Figala et al
7. Beyond the dating game Alan Shapiro
Part III. Newton's Principia: 8. The critical role of curvature in Newton's developing dynamics Bruce Brackenridge
9. Newton and the absolutes A. Rupert Hall
8. Newton's ontology Zev Bechler
10. Newton's mathematical principles of natural philosophy Alan Gabbey
11. The review of the first edition of Newton's Principia in the Acta Eruditorum Bernard Cohen
12. Newton, Cotes David Fowler
Part IV. Newton and Eighteenth-Century Mathematics and Physics: 14. A study of spirals Ronald Cowing
15. The fragmentation of the European mathematical community Lenore Feigenbaum
16. Euler on action at a distance and fundamental equations in continuum mechanics Curtis Wilson
17. St Peter and the rotation of the Earth Domenico Bertolini Meli
Part V. After Newton: 18. Why Stokes never wrote a treatise on optics Jed Buchwald
19. Maxwell and Saturn's rings Peter M. Harman
20. Poincare, topological dynamics Jeremy Gray.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX]