The Principia: The Authoritative Translation and Guide: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
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This authoritative, modern translation by I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman, the first in more than 285 years, is based on the 1726 edition, the final revised version approved by Newton; it includes extracts from the earlier editions, corrects errors found in earlier versions, and replaces archaic English with contemporary prose and up-to-date mathematical forms.
Newton's principles describe acceleration, deceleration, and inertial movement; fluid dynamics; and the motions of the earth, moon, planets, and comets. A great work in itself, the Principia also revolutionized the methods of scientific investigation. It set forth the fundamental three laws of motion and the law of universal gravity, the physical principles that account for the Copernican system of the world as emended by Kepler, thus effectively ending controversy concerning the Copernican planetary system.
The illuminating Guide to Newton's Principia by I. Bernard Cohen makes this preeminent work truly accessible for today's scientists, scholars, and students.
Sir Isaac Newton
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76 ratings3 reviews
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- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Amazing -- so many things to discover then still tightly integrated together. Most of this work involves basics of physics and astronomy, including geometric proofs related to the moon's pull on tides, comets, fluid dynamics, et al. Newton did most of his truly cutting edge work in just a few concentrated years, but remained involved in political and educational offices for most of his 85 years. The geometric proofs often involve some very complex lemmas.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An excellent modern English 'translation' of Newton's epoch-making treatise.
Book preview
The Principia - Sir Isaac Newton
THE PRINCIPIA
decorThe publication of this work has been made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency. The publisher also gratefully acknowledges the generous contribution to this book provided by the General Endowment Fund of the Associates of the University of California Press.
Isaac NewtonPortrait of Isaac Newton at about the age of sixty, a drawing presented by Newton to David Gregory. For details see the following page.
Portrait of Isaac Newton at about the age of sixty, presented by Newton to David Gregory (1661–1708). This small oval drawing (roughly 3¾ in. from top to bottom and 3¼ in. from left to right) is closely related to the large oval portrait in oils made by Kneller in 1702, which is considered to be the second authentic portrait made of Newton. The kinship between this drawing and the oil painting can be seen in the pose, the expression, and such unmistakable details as the slight cast in the left eye and the button on the shirt. Newton is shown in both this drawing and the painting of 1702 in his academic robe and wearing a luxurious wig, whereas in the previous portrait by Kneller (now in the National Portrait Gallery in London), painted in 1689, two years after the publication of the Principia, Newton is similarly attired but is shown with his own shoulder-length hair.
This drawing was almost certainly made after the painting, since Kneller’s preliminary drawings for his paintings are usually larger than this one and tend to concentrate on the face rather than on the details of the attire of the subject. The fact that this drawing shows every detail of the finished oil painting is thus evidence that it was copied from the finished portrait. Since Gregory died in 1708, the drawing can readily be dated to between 1702 and 1708. In those days miniature portraits were commonly used in the way that we today would use portrait photographs. The small size of the drawing indicates that it was not a copy made in preparation for an engraved portrait but was rather made to be used by Newton as a gift.
The drawing captures Kneller’s powerful representation of Newton, showing him as a person with a forceful personality, poised to conquer new worlds in his recently gained position of power in London. This high level of artistic representation and the quality of the drawing indicate that the artist responsible for it was a person of real talent and skill.
The drawing is mounted in a frame, on the back of which there is a longhand note reading: This original drawing of Sir Isaac Newton, belonged formerly to Professor Gregory of Oxford; by him it was bequeathed to his youngest son (Sir Isaac’s godson) who was later Secretary of Sion College; & by him left by Will to the Revd. Mr. Mence, who had the Goodness to give it to Dr. Douglas; March 8th 1870.
David Gregory first made contact with Newton in the early 1690s, and although their relations got off to a bad start, Newton did recommend Gregory for the Savilian Professorship of Astronomy at Oxford, a post which he occupied until his death in 1708. As will be evident to readers of the Guide, Gregory is one of our chief sources of information concerning Newton’s intellectual activities during the 1690s and the early years of the eighteenth century, the period when Newton was engaged in revising and planning a reconstruction of his Principia. Gregory recorded many conversations with Newton in which Newton discussed his proposed revisions of the Principia and other projects and revealed some of his most intimate and fundamental thoughts about science, religion, and philosophy. So far as is known, the note on the back of the portrait is the only record that Newton stood godfather to Gregory’s youngest son.
ISAAC NEWTON
decorTHE PRINCIPIA
Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
decorThe Authoritative Translation
by I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman
assisted by Julia Budenz
Preceded by
A GUIDE TO NEWTON’S PRINCIPIA
by I. Bernard Cohen
decorUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.
University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 1999 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Newton, Isaac, Sir, 1642–1727.
[Principia. English]
The Principia: mathematical principles of natural philosophy / Isaac Newton; a new translation by I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman assisted by Julia Budenz; preceded by a guide to Newton’s Principia by I. Bernard Cohen.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 978-0-520-29087-7 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN: 978-0-520-29088-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN: 978-0-520-96481-5 (ebook)
1. Newton, Isaac, Sir, 1642–1727. Principia. 2. Mechanics—Early works to 1800. 3. Celestial mechanics—Early works to 1800. I. Cohen, I. Bernard, 1914– . II. Whitman, Anne Miller, 1937–1984. III. Title.
QA803.N413 1999
531—dc21
99-10278
CIP
Printed in the United States of America
25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R 2002) (Permanence of Paper).
This translation is dedicated to
D. T. WHITESIDE
with respect and affection
Contents
Preface
A GUIDE TO NEWTON’S PRINCIPIA
Contents of the Guide
Abbreviations
CHAPTER ONE: A Brief History of the Principia
CHAPTER TWO: Translating the Principia
CHAPTER THREE: Some General Aspects of the Principia
CHAPTER FOUR: Some Fundamental Concepts of the Principia
CHAPTER FIVE: Axioms, or the Laws of Motion
CHAPTER SIX: The Structure of Book 1
CHAPTER SEVEN: The Structure of Book 2
CHAPTER EIGHT: The Structure of Book 3
CHAPTER NINE: The Concluding General Scholium
CHAPTER TEN: How to Read the Principia
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Conclusion
Notes to the Guide
THE PRINCIPIA (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy)
Contents of the Principia
Halley’s Ode to Newton
Newton’s Preface to the First Edition
Newton’s Preface to the Second Edition
Cotes’s Preface to the Second Edition
Newton’s Preface to the Third Edition
Definitions
Axioms, or the Laws of Motion
BOOK 1: THE MOTION OF BODIES
BOOK 2: THE MOTION OF BODIES
BOOK 3: THE SYSTEM OF THE WORLD
General Scholium
Notes to the Principia
Index
Contents of the Guide
Abbreviations
CHAPTER ONE: A Brief History of the Principia
1.1 The Origins of the Principia
1.2 Steps Leading to the Composition and Publication of the Principia
1.3 Revisions and Later Editions
CHAPTER TWO: Translating the Principia
2.1 Translations of the Principia: English Versions by Andrew Motte (1729), Henry Pemberton (1729–?), and Thomas Thorp (1777)
2.2 Motte’s English Translation
2.3 The Motte-Cajori Version; The Need for a New Translation
2.4 A Problem in Translation: Passive or Active Voice in Book 1, Secs. 2 and 3; The Sense of Acta
in Book 1, Prop. 1
2.5 Continuous
versus Continual
; The Problem of Infinite
CHAPTER THREE: Some General Aspects of the Principia
3.1 The Title of Newton’s Principia; The Influence of Descartes
3.2 Newton’s Goals: An Unpublished Preface to the Principia
3.3 Varieties of Newton’s Concepts of Force in the Principia
3.4 The Reorientation of Newton’s Philosophy of Nature; Alchemy and the Principia
3.5 The Reality of Forces of Attraction; The Newtonian Style
3.6 Did Newton Make the Famous Moon Test of the Theory of Gravity in the 1660s?
3.7 The Continuity in Newton’s Methods of Studying Orbital Motion: The Three Approximations (Polygonal, Parabolic, Circular)
3.8 Hooke’s Contribution to Newton’s Thinking about Orbital Motion
3.9 Newton’s Curvature Measure of Force: New Findings (by Michael Nauenberg)
3.10 Newton’s Use of Centrifugal Force
in the Principia
CHAPTER FOUR: Some Fundamental Concepts of the Principia
4.1 Newton’s Definitions
4.2 Quantity of Matter: Mass (Def. 1)
4.3 Is Newton’s Definition of Mass Circular?
4.4 Newton’s Determination of Masses
4.5 Newton’s Concept of Density
4.6 Quantity of Motion: Momentum (Def. 2)
4.7 Vis Insita
: Inherent Force and the Force of Inertia (Def. 3)
4.8 Newton’s Acquaintance with Vis Insita
and Inertia
4.9 Impressed Force; Anticipations of Laws of Motion (Def. 4)
4.10 Centripetal Force and Its Three Measures (Defs. 5, 6–8)
4.11 Time and Space in the Principia; Newton’s Concept of Absolute and Relative Space and Time and of Absolute Motion; The Rotating-Bucket Experiment
CHAPTER FIVE: Axioms, or the Laws of Motion
5.1 Newton’s Laws of Motion or Laws of Nature
5.2 The First Law; Why Both a First Law and a Second Law?
5.3 The Second Law: Force and Change in Motion
5.4 From Impulsive Forces to Continually Acting Forces: Book 1, Prop. 1; Is the Principia Written in the Manner of Greek Geometry?
5.5 The Third Law: Action and Reaction
5.6 Corollaries and Scholium: The Parallelogram Rule, Simple Machines, Elastic and Inelastic Impact
5.7 Does the Concept of Energy and Its Conservation Appear in the Principia?
5.8 Methods of Proof versus Method of Discovery; The New Analysis
and Newton’s Allegations about How the Principia Was Produced; The Use of Fluxions in the Principia
CHAPTER SIX: The Structure of Book 1
6.1 The General Structure of the Principia
6.2 Sec. 1: First and Ultimate Ratios
6.3 Secs. 2–3: The Law of Areas, Circular Motion, Newton’s Dynamical Measure of Force; The Centripetal Force in Motion on an Ellipse, on a Hyperbola, and on a Parabola
6.4 The Inverse Problem: The Orbit Produced by an Inverse-Square Centripetal Force
6.5 Secs. 4—5: The Geometry of Conics
6.6 Problems of Elliptical Motion (Sec. 6); Kepler’s Problem
6.7 The Rectilinear Ascent and Descent of Bodies (Sec. 7)
6.8 Motion under the Action of Any Centripetal Forces (Sec. 8); Prop. 41
6.9 Specifying the Initial Velocity in Prop. 41; The Galileo-Plato Problem
6.10 Moving Orbits (Sec. 9) and Motions on Smooth Planes and Surfaces (Sec. 10)
6.11 The Mutual Attractions of Bodies (Sec. 11) and the Newtonian Style
6.12 Sec. 11: The Theory of Perturbations (Prop. 66 and Its Twenty-Two Corollaries)
6.13 Sec. 12 (Some Aspects of the Dynamics of Spherical Bodies); Sec. 13 (The Attraction of Nonspherical Bodies); Sec. 14 (The Motion of Minimally Small
Bodies)
CHAPTER SEVEN: The Structure of Book 2
7.1 Some Aspects of Book 2
7.2 Secs. 1, 2, and 3 of Book 2: Motion under Various Conditions of Resistance
7.3 Problems with Prop. 10
7.4 Problems with the Diagram for the Scholium to Prop. 10
7.5 Secs. 4 and 5: Definition of a Fluid; Newton on Boyle’s Law; The Definition of Simple Pendulum
7.6 Secs. 6 and 7: The Motion of Pendulums and the Resistance of Fluids to the Motions of Pendulums and Projectiles; A General Scholium (Experiments on Resistance to Motion)
7.7 The Solid of Least Resistance; The Design of Ships; The Efflux of Water
7.8 Sec. 8: Wave Motion and the Motion of Sound
7.9 The Physics of Vortices (Sec. 9, Props. 51—53); Vortices Shown to Be Inconsistent with Keplerian Planetary Motion
7.10 Another Way of Considering Book 2: Some Achievements of Book 2 (by George E. Smith)
CHAPTER EIGHT: The Structure of Book 3; The System of the World
8.1 The Structure of Book 3
8.2 From Hypotheses to Rules and Phenomena
8.3 Newton’s Rules for Natural Philosophy
8.4 Newton’s Phenomena
8.5 Newton’s Hyp. 3
8.6 Props. 1–5: The Principles of Motion of Planets and of Their Satellites; The First Moon Test
8.7 Jupiter’s Perturbation of Saturn as Evidence for Universal Gravity
8.8 Planetary Perturbations: The Interaction of Jupiter and Saturn (by George E. Smith)
8.9 Props. 6 and 7: Mass and Weight
8.10 Prop. 8 and Its Corollaries (The Masses and Densities of the Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Earth)
8.11 Props. 9—20: The Force of Gravity within Planets, the Duration of the Solar System, the Effects of the Inverse-Square Force of Gravity (Further Aspects of Gravity and the System of the World): Newton’s Hyp. 1
8.12 Prop. 24: Theory of the Tides; The First Enunciation of the Principle of Interference
8.13 Props. 36–38: The Tidal Force of the Sun and the Moon; The Mass and Density (and Dimensions) of the Moon
8.14 Props. 22, 25–35: The Motion of the Moon
8.15 Newton and the Problem of the Moon’s Motion (by George E. Smith)
8.16 The Motion of the Lunar Apsis (by George E. Smith)
8.17 Prop. 39: The Shape of the Earth and the Precession of the Equinoxes
8.18 Comets (The Concluding Portion of Book 3)
CHAPTER NINE: The Concluding General Scholium
9.1 The General Scholium: Hypotheses non fingo
9.2 Satis est
: Is It Enough?
9.3 Newton’s Electric and Elastic
Spirit
9.4 A Gloss on Newton’s Electric and Elastic
Spirit: An Electrical Conclusion to the Principia
CHAPTER TEN: How to Read the Principia
10.1 Some Useful Commentaries and Reference Works; Newton’s Directions for Reading the Principia
10.2 Some Features of Our Translation; A Note on the Diagrams
10.3 Some Technical Terms and Special Translations (including Newton’s Use of Rectangle
and Solid
)
10.4 Some Trigonometric Terms (Sine,
Cosine,
Tangent,
Versed Sine
and Sagitta,
Subtense,
Subtangent
); Ratio
versus Proportion
; Q.E.D.,
Q.E.F.,
Q.E.I.,
and Q.E.O.
10.5 Newton’s Way of Expressing Ratios and Proportions
10.6 The Classic Ratios (as in Euclid’s Elements , Book 5)
10.7 Newton’s Proofs; Limits and Quadratures; More on Fluxions in the Principia
10.8 Example No. 1: Book 1, Prop. 6 (Newton’s Dynamical Measure of Force), with Notes on Prop. 1 (A Centrally Directed Force Acting on a Body with Uniform Linear Motion Will Produce Motion according to the Law of Areas)
10.9 Example No. 2: Book 1, Prop. 11 (The Direct Problem: Given an Ellipse, to Find the Force Directed toward a Focus)
10.10 Example No. 3: A Theorem on Ellipses from the Theory of Conics, Needed for Book 1, Props. 10 and 11
10.11 Example No. 4: Book 1, Prop. 32 (How Far a Body Will Fall under the Action of an Inverse-Square Force)
10.12 Example No. 5: Book 1, Prop. 41 (To Find the Orbit in Which a Body Moves When Acted On by a Given Centripetal Force and Then to Find the Orbital Position at Any Specified Time)
10.13 Example No. 6: Book 1, Lem. 29 (An Example of the Calculus or of Fluxions in Geometric Form)
10.14 Example No. 7: Book 3, Prop. 19 (The Shape of the Earth)
10.15 Example No. 8: A Theorem on the Variation of Weight with Latitude (from Book 3, Prop. 20)
10.16 Example No. 9: Book 1, Prop. 66, Corol. 14, Needed for Book 3, Prop. 37, Corol. 3
10.17 Newton’s Numbers: The Fudge Factor
10.18 Newton’s Measures
10.19 A Puzzle in Book 1, Prop. 66, Corol. 14 (by George E. Smith)
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Conclusion
Notes to the Guide
Contents of the Principia
Halley’s Ode to Newton
Newton’s Preface to the First Edition
Newton’s Preface to the Second Edition
Cotes’s Preface to the Second Edition
Newton’s Preface to the Third Edition
Definitions
Axioms, or the Laws of Motion
BOOK 1: THE MOTION OF BODIES
Section 1
Lemma 1
Lemma 2
Lemma 3
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
Lemma 4
COROLLARY
Lemma 5
Lemma 6
Lemma 7
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Lemma 8
COROLLARY
Lemma 9
Lemma 10
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
Scholium
Lemma 11
CASE 1
CASE 2
CASE 3
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
Scholium
Section 2
Proposition 1, Theorem 1
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
COROLLARY 6
Proposition 2, Theorem 2
CASE 1
CASE 2
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Scholium
Proposition 3 Theorem 3
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
Scholium
Proposition 4, Theorem 4
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
COROLLARY 6
COROLLARY 7
COROLLARY 8
COROLLARY 9
Scholium
Proposition 5, Problem 1
Proposition 6, Theorem 5
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
Proposition 7, Problem 2
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Proposition 8, Problem 3
Scholium
Proposition 9, Problem 4
Lemma 12
Proposition 10, Problem 5
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Scholium
Section 3
Proposition 11, Problem 6
Proposition 12, Problem 7
Lemma 13
Lemma 14
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Proposition 13, Problem 8
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Proposition 14, Theorem 6
COROLLARY
Proposition 15, Theorem 7
COROLLARY
Proposition 16, Theorem 8
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
COROLLARY 6
COROLLARY 7
COROLLARY 8
COROLLARY 9
Proposition 17, Problem 9
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
Scholium
Section 4
Lemma 15
Proposition 18, Problem 10
Proposition 19, Problem 11
Proposition 20, Problem 12
CASE 1
CASE 2
CASE 3
CASE 4
Lemma 16
CASE 1
CASE 2
CASE 3
Proposition 21, Problem 13
Scholium
Section 5
Lemma 17
CASE 1
CASE 2
CASE 3
Lemma 18
COROLLARY
Scholium
Lemma 19
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Lemma 20
CASE 1
CASE 2
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Lemma 21
Proposition 22, Problem 14
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Scholium
Proposition 23, Problem 15
CASE 1
CASE 2
Proposition 24, Problem 16
Lemma 22
Proposition 25, Problem 17
Proposition 26, Problem 18
Lemma 23
COROLLARY
Lemma 24
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Lemma 25
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Proposition 27, Problem 19
Scholium
Lemma 26
COROLLARY
Proposition 28, Problem 20
Lemma 27
COROLLARY
Proposition 29, Problem 21
Scholium
Section 6
Proposition 30, Problem 22
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Lemma 28
COROLLARY
Proposition 31, Problem 23
Scholium
Section 7
Proposition 32, Problem 24
CASE 1
CASE 2
CASE 3
Proposition 33, Theorem 9
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Proposition 34, Theorem 10
Proposition 35, Theorem 11
CASE 1
CASE 2
Proposition 36, Problem 25
Proposition 37, Problem 26
Proposition 38, Theorem 12
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Proposition 39, Problem 27
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Section 8
Proposition 40, Theorem 13
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Proposition 41, Problem 28
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Proposition 42, Problem 29
Section 9
Proposition 43, Problem 30
Proposition 44, Theorem 14
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
COROLLARY 6
Proposition 45, Problem 31
EXAMPLE 1
EXAMPLE 2
EXAMPLE 3
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Section 10
Proposition 46, Problem 32
Proposition 47, Theorem 15
Scholium
Proposition 48, Theorem 16
Proposition 49, Theorem 17
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Proposition 50, Problem 33
COROLLARY
Proposition 51, Theorem 18
COROLLARY
Proposition 52, Problem 34
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Proposition 53, Problem 35
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Proposition 54, Problem 36
Proposition 55, Theorem 19
COROLLARY
Proposition 56, Problem 37
Section 11
Proposition 57, Theorem 20
Proposition 58, Theorem 21
CASE 1
CASE 2
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Proposition 59, Theorem 22
Proposition 60, Theorem 23
Proposition 61, Theorem 24
Proposition 62, Problem 38
Proposition 63, Problem 39
Proposition 64, Problem 40
Proposition 65, Theorem 25
CASE 1
CASE 2
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Proposition 66, Theorem 26
CASE 1
CASE 2
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
COROLLARY 6
COROLLARY 7
COROLLARY 8
COROLLARY 9
COROLLARY 10
COROLLARY 11
COROLLARY 12
COROLLARY 13
COROLLARY 14
COROLLARY 15
COROLLARY 16
COROLLARY 17
COROLLARY 18
COROLLARY 19
COROLLARY 20
COROLLARY 21
COROLLARY 22
Proposition 67, Theorem 27
Proposition 68, Theorem 28
COROLLARY
Proposition 69, Theorem 29
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Scholium
Section 12
Proposition 70, Theorem 30
Proposition 71, Theorem 31
Proposition 72, Theorem 32
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Proposition 73, Theorem 33
Scholium
Proposition 74, Theorem 34
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Proposition 75, Theorem 35
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
Proposition 76, Theorem 36
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
COROLLARY 6
COROLLARY 7
COROLLARY 8
COROLLARY 9
Proposition 77, Theorem 37
CASE 1
CASE 2
CASE 3
CASE 4
CASE 5
CASE 6
Proposition 78, Theorem 38
COROLLARY
Scholium
Lemma 29
Proposition 79, Theorem 39
Proposition 80, Theorem 40
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
Proposition 81, Problem 41
EXAMPLE 1
EXAMPLE 2
EXAMPLE 3
Proposition 82, Theorem 41
Proposition 83, Problem 42
Proposition 84, Problem 43
Scholium
Section 13
Proposition 85, Theorem 42
Proposition 86, Theorem 43
Proposition 87, Theorem 44
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Proposition 88, Theorem 45
COROLLARY
Proposition 89, Theorem 46
COROLLARY
Proposition 90, Problem 44
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Proposition 91, Problem 45
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Proposition 92, Problem 46
Proposition 93, Theorem 47
CASE 1
CASE 2
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Scholium
Section 14
Proposition 94, Theorem 48
CASE 1
CASE 2
Proposition 95, Theorem 49
Proposition 96, Theorem 50
Scholium
Proposition 97, Problem 47
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Proposition 98, Problem 48
Scholium
BOOK 2: THE MOTION OF BODIES
Section 1
Proposition 1, Theorem 1
COROLLARY
Lemma 1
Proposition 2, Theorem 2
CASE 1
CASE 2
COROLLARY
Proposition 3, Problem 1
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
Proposition 4, Problem 2
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
COROLLARY 6
COROLLARY 7
Section 2
Proposition 5, Theorem 3
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
Proposition 6, Theorem 4
Proposition 7, Theorem 5
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
Lemma 2
CASE 1
CASE 2
CASE 3
CASE 4
CASE 5
CASE 6
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Scholium
Proposition 8, Theorem 6
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Proposition 9, Theorem 7
CASE 1
CASE 2
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
COROLLARY 6
COROLLARY 7
Proposition 10, Problem 3
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
EXAMPLE 1
EXAMPLE 2
EXAMPLE 3
EXAMPLE 4
Scholium
RULE 1
RULE 2
RULE 3
RULE 4
RULE 5
RULE 6
RULE 7
RULE 8
Section 3
Proposition 11, Theorem 8
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Proposition 12, Theorem 9
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Proposition 13, Theorem 10
CASE 1
CASE 2
CASE 3
COROLLARY
Scholium
Proposition 14, Theorem 11
CASE 1
CASE 2
CASE 3
COROLLARY
Scholium
Section 4
Lemma 3
Proposition 15, Theorem 12
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
COROLLARY 6
COROLLARY 7
COROLLARY 8
COROLLARY 9
Proposition 16, Theorem 13
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Scholium
Proposition 17, Problem 4
Proposition 18, Problem 5
Section 5
Definition of a Fluid
Proposition 19, Theorem 14
CASE 1
CASE 2
CASE 3
CASE 4
CASE 5
CASE 6
CASE 7
COROLLARY
Proposition 20, Theorem 15
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
COROLLARY 6
COROLLARY 7
COROLLARY 8
COROLLARY 9
Proposition 21, Theorem 16
COROLLARY
Proposition 22, Theorem 17
COROLLARY
Scholium
Proposition 23, Theorem 18
Scholium
Section 6
Proposition 24, Theorem 19
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
COROLLARY 6
COROLLARY 7
Proposition 25, Theorem 20
COROLLARY
Proposition 26, Theorem 21
Proposition 27, Theorem 22
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Proposition 28, Theorem 23
Proposition 29, Problem 6
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Proposition 30, Theorem 24
COROLLARY
Proposition 31, Theorem 25
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
General Scholium
Section 7
Proposition 32, Theorem 26
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Proposition 33, Theorem 27
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
COROLLARY 6
Proposition 34, Theorem 28
Scholium
Proposition 35, Problem 7
CASE 1
CASE 2
CASE 3
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
COROLLARY 6
COROLLARY 7
Scholium
Proposition 36, Problem 8
CASE 1
CASE 2
CASE 3
CASE 4
CASE 5
CASE 6
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
COROLLARY 6
COROLLARY 7
COROLLARY 8
COROLLARY 9
COROLLARY 10
Lemma 4
Proposition 37, Theorem 29
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Scholium
Lemma 5
Lemma 6
Lemma 7
Scholium
Proposition 38, Theorem 30
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
Proposition 39, Theorem 31
Scholium
Proposition 40, Problem 9
Scholium
EXPERIMENT 1
EXPERIMENT 2
EXPERIMENT 3
EXPERIMENT 4
EXPERIMENT 5
EXPERIMENT 6
EXPERIMENT 7
EXPERIMENT 8
EXPERIMENT 9
EXPERIMENT 10
EXPERIMENT 11
EXPERIMENT 12
EXPERIMENT 13
EXPERIMENT 14
Section 8
Proposition 41, Theorem 32
COROLLARY
Proposition 42, Theorem 33
CASE 1
CASE 2
CASE 3
Proposition 43, Theorem 34
CASE 1
CASE 2
COROLLARY
Proposition 44, Theorem 35
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Proposition 45, Theorem 36
Proposition 46, Problem 10
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Proposition 47, Theorem 37
COROLLARY
Proposition 48, Theorem 38
CASE 1
CASE 2
CASE 3
Proposition 49, Problem 11
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Proposition 50, Problem 12
Scholium
Section 9
Hypothesis
Proposition 51, Theorem 39
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
COROLLARY 6
Proposition 52, Theorem 40
CASE 1
CASE 2
CASE 3
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
COROLLARY 6
COROLLARY 7
COROLLARY 8
COROLLARY 9
COROLLARY 10
COROLLARY 11
Scholium
Proposition 53, Theorem 41
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Scholium
BOOK 3: THE SYSTEM OF THE WORLD
Rules for the Study of Natural Philosophy
Rule 1
Rule 2
Rule 3
Rule 4
Phenomena
Phenomenon 1
Phenomenon 2
Phenomenon 3
Phenomenon 4
Phenomenon 5
Phenomenon 6
Propositions
Proposition 1, Theorem 1
Proposition 2, Theorem 2
Proposition 3, Theorem 3
COROLLARY
Proposition 4, Theorem 4
Scholium
Proposition 5, Theorem 5
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Scholium
Proposition 6, Theorem 6
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
Proposition 7, Theorem 7
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Proposition 8, Theorem 8
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
Proposition 9, Theorem 9
Proposition 10, Theorem 10
Hypothesis 1
Proposition 11, Theorem 11
Proposition 12, Theorem 12
COROLLARY
Proposition 13, Theorem 13
Proposition 14, Theorem 14
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Scholium
Proposition 15, Problem 1
Proposition 16, Problem 2
Proposition 17, Theorem 15
Proposition 18, Theorem 16
Proposition 19, Problem 3
Proposition 20, Problem 4
Proposition 21, Theorem 17
Proposition 22, Theorem 18
Proposition 23, Problem 5
Proposition 24, Theorem 19
Proposition 25, Problem 6
Proposition 26, Problem 7
Proposition 27, Problem 8
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Proposition 28, Problem 9
Proposition 29, Problem 10
Proposition 30, Problem 11
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
Proposition 31, Problem 12
COROLLARY
Proposition 32, Problem 13
Proposition 33, Problem 14
COROLLARY
Scholium
Proposition 34, Problem 15
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
Proposition 35, Problem 16
Scholium
Proposition 36, Problem 17
COROLLARY
Proposition 37, Problem 18
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
COROLLARY 5
COROLLARY 6
COROLLARY 7
COROLLARY 8
COROLLARY 9
COROLLARY 10
Proposition 38, Problem 19
COROLLARY
Lemma 1
Lemma 2
Lemma 3
Hypothesis 2
Proposition 39, Problem 20
Lemma 4
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
Proposition 40, Theorem 20
COROLLARY 1
COROLLARY 2
COROLLARY 3
COROLLARY 4
Lemma 5
CASE 1
CASE 2
COROLLARY
Lemma 6
Lemma 7
Lemma 8
COROLLARY
Scholium
Lemma 9
Lemma 10
COROLLARY
Lemma 11
Proposition 41, Problem 21
EXAMPLE
Proposition 42, Problem 22
OPERATION 1
OPERATION 2
OPERATION 3
General Scholium
Notes to the Principia
Preface
ALTHOUGH NEWTON’s PRINCIPIA has been translated into many languages, the last complete translation into English (indeed, the only such complete translation) was produced by Andrew Motte and published in London more than two and a half centuries ago. This translation was printed again and again in the nineteenth century and in the 1930s was modernized and revised as a result of the efforts of Florian Cajori. This latter version, with its partial modernization and partial revision, has become the standard English text of the Principia.
Motte’s version is often almost as opaque to the modern reader as Newton’s Latin original, since Motte used such older and unfamiliar expressions as subsesquialterate
ratio. Additionally, there are statements in which the terms are no longer immediately comprehensible today, such as book 3, prop. 8, corol. 3, in which Motte writes that the densities of dissimilar spheres are as those weights applied to the diameters of the spheres,
a statement unaltered in the Motte-Cajori version. Of course, a little thought reveals that Newton was writing about the densities of nonhomogeneous spheres and was concluding with a reference to the weights divided by the diameters. The Motte-Cajori version, as explained in §2.3 of the Guide to the present translation, is also not satisfactory because it too is frequently difficult to read and, what is more important, does not always present an authentic rendition of Newton’s original. The discovery of certain extraordinary examples in which scholars have been misled in this regard was a chief factor in our decision to produce the present translation.
When we completed our Latin edition, somewhat awed by the prospect of undertaking a wholly new translation, we thought of producing a new edition of Motte’s English version, with notes that either would give the reader a modern equivalent of difficult passages in Motte’s English prose or would contain some aids to help the reader with certain archaic mathematical expressions. That is, since Motte’s text had been a chief means of disseminating Newton’s science for over two centuries, we considered treating it as an important historical document in its own right. Such a plan was announced in our Latin edition, and we even prepared a special interleaved copy of the facsimile of the 1729 edition to serve as our working text.*
After the Latin edition appeared, however, many colleagues and some reviewers of that edition insisted that it was now our obligation to produce a completely new translation of the Principia, rather than confine our attentions to Motte’s older pioneering work. We were at first reluctant to accept this assignment, not only because of the difficulty and enormous labor involved, but also because of our awareness that we ourselves would thereby become responsible for interpretations of Newton’s thought for a long period of time.
Goaded by our colleagues and friendly critics, Anne Whitman and I finally agreed to produce a wholly new version of the Principia. We were fortunate in obtaining a grant from the National Science Foundation to support our efforts. Many scholars offered good advice, chief among them our good friends D. T. Whiteside and R. S. Westfall. In particular, Whiteside stressed for us that we should pay no attention to any existing translation, not even consulting any other version on occasions when we might be puzzled, until after our own assignment had been fully completed. Anyone who has had to translate a technical text will appreciate the importance of this advice, since it is all too easy to be influenced by other translations, even to the extent of unconsciously repeating their errors. Accordingly, during the first two or three rounds of translation and revision, we recorded puzzling or doubtful passages, and passages for which we hoped to produce a final version that would be less awkward than our preliminary efforts, reserving for some later time a possible comparison of our version with others. It should be noted that in the final two rounds of our revision, while checking some difficult passages and comparing some of our renditions with others, the most useful works for such purpose were Whiteside’s own translation of an early draft of what corresponds to most of book 1 of the Principia and the French translation made in the mid-eighteenth century by the marquise du Châtelet. On some difficult points, we also profited from the exegeses and explanations in the Le Seur and Jacquier Latin edition and the Krylov Russian edition. While neither Anne Whitman nor I could read Russian, we did have the good fortune to have two former students, Richard Kotz and Dennis Brezina, able and willing to translate a number of Krylov’s notes for us.
The translation presented here is a rendition of the third and final edition of Newton’s Principia into present-day English with two major aims: to make Newton’s text understandable to today’s reader and yet to preserve Newton’s form of mathematical expression. We have thus resisted any temptation to rewrite Newton’s text by introducing equations where he expressed himself in words. We have, however, generally transmuted such expressions as subsesquiplicate ratio
into more simply understandable terms. These matters are explained at length in §§10.3–10.5 of the Guide.
After we had completed our translation and had checked it against Newton’s Latin original several times, we compared our version with Motte’s and found many of our phrases to be almost identical, except for Motte’s antique mathematical expressions. This was especially the case in the mathematical portions of books 1 and 2 and the early part of book 3. After all, there are not many ways of saying that a quantity A is proportional to another quantity B. Taking into account that Motte’s phrasing represents the prose of Newton’s own day (his translation was published in 1729) and that in various forms his rendition has been the standard for the English-reading world for almost three centuries, we decided that we would maintain some continuity with this tradition by making our phrasing conform to some degree to Motte’s. This comparison of texts did show, however, that Motte had often taken liberties with Newton’s text and had even expanded Newton’s expressions by adding his own explanations—a result that confirmed the soundness of the advice that we not look at Motte’s translation until after we had completed our own text.
This translation was undertaken in order to provide a readable text for students of Newton’s thought who are unable to penetrate the barrier of Newton’s Latin. Following the advice of scholarly friends and counselors, we have not overloaded the translation with extensive notes and comments of the sort intended for specialists, rather allowing the text to speak for itself. Much of the kind of editorial comment and explanation that would normally appear in such notes may be found in the Guide. Similarly, information concerning certain important changes in the text from edition to edition is given in the Guide, as well as in occasional textual notes. The table of contents for the Guide, found on pages 3–7, will direct the reader to specific sections of the Principia, or even to particular propositions.
The Guide to the present translation is intended to be just that—a kind of extended road map through the sometimes labyrinthine pathways of the Principia. Some propositions, methods, and concepts are analyzed at length, and in some instances critical details of Newton’s argument are presented and some indications are given of the alterations produced by Newton from one edition to the next. Sometimes reference is made to secondary works where particular topics are discussed, but no attempt has been made to indicate the vast range of scholarly information relating to this or that point. That is, I have tended to cite, in the text and in the footnote references, primarily those works that either have been of special importance for my understanding of some particular point or some sections of the Principia or that may be of help to the reader who wishes to gain a more extensive knowledge of some topic. As a result, I have not had occasion in the text to make public acknowledgment of all the works that have been important influences on my own thinking about the Principia and about the Newtonian problems associated with that work. In this rubric I would include, among others, the important articles by J. E. McGuire, the extremely valuable monographs on many significant aspects of Newton’s science and philosophic background by Maurizio Mamiani (which have not been fully appreciated by the scholarly world because they are written in Italian), the two histories of mechanics by Réne Dugas and the antecedent documentary history by Léon Jouguet, the analysis of Newton’s concepts and methods by Pierre Duhem and Ernst Mach, and monographic studies by Michel Blay, G. Bathélemy, Pierre Costabel, and A. Rupert Hall, and by François de Gandt.
I also fear that in the Guide I may not have sufficiently stressed how greatly my understanding of the Principia has profited from the researches of D. T. Whiteside and Curtis Wilson and from the earlier commentaries of David Gregory, of Thomas Le Seur and François Jacquier, and of Alexis Clairaut. The reader will find, as I have done, that R. S Westfall’s Never at Rest not only provides an admirable guide to the chronology of Newton’s life and the development of his thought in general, but also analyzes the whole range of Newton’s science and presents almost every aspect of the Principia in historical perspective.
All students of the Principia find a guiding beacon in D. T. Whiteside’s essays and his texts and commentaries in his edition of Newton’s Mathematical Papers, esp. vols. 6 and 8 (cited on p. 9 below). On Newton’s astronomy, the concise analysis by Curtis Wilson (cited on p. 10 below) has been of enormous value. Many of the texts quoted in the Guide have been translated into English. It did not seem necessary to mention this fact again and again.
From the very start of this endeavor, Anne Whitman and I were continuously aware of the awesome responsibility that was placed on our shoulders, having in mind all too well the ways in which even scholars of the highest distinction have been misled by inaccuracies and real faults in the current twentieth-century English version. We recognized that no translator or editor could boast of having perfectly understood Newton’s text and of having found the proper meaning of every proof and construction. We have ever been aware that a translation of a work as difficult as Newton’s Principia will certainly contain some serious blunders or errors of interpretation. We were not so vain that we were always sure that we fully understood every level of Newton’s meaning. We took comfort in noting that even Halley, who probably read the original Principia as carefully as anyone could, did not always fully understand the mathematical significance of Newton’s text. We therefore, in close paraphrase of Newton’s own preface to the first edition, earnestly ask that everything be read with an open mind and that the defects in a subject so difficult may be not so much reprehended as kindly corrected and improved by the endeavors of our readers.
I. B. C.
Some Acknowledgments
Anne Whitman died in 1984, when our complete text was all but ready for publication, being our fourth (and in some cases fifth and even sixth) version. It was her wish, as well as mine, that this translation be dedicated to the scholar whose knowledge of almost every aspect of Newton’s mathematics, science, and life is unmatched in our time and whose own contributions to knowledge have raised the level of Newtonian scholarship to new heights.
We are fortunate that Julia Budenz has been able to help us with various aspects of producing our translation and especially in the final stages of preparing this work for publication.
It has been a continual joy to work with the University of California Press. I am especially grateful to Elizabeth Knoll, for her thoughtfulness with regard to every aspect of converting our work into a printed book, and to Rose Vekony, for the care and wisdom she has exercised in seeing this complex work through production, completing the assignment so skillfully begun by Rebecca Frazier. I have profited greatly from the many wise suggestions made by Nicholas Goodhue, whose command of Latin has made notable improvements in both the Guide and the translation. One of the fortunate aspects of having the translation published by the University of California Press is that we have been able to use the diagrams (some with corrections) of the older version.
I gladly acknowledge and record some truly extraordinary acts of scholarly friendship. Three colleagues—George E. Smith, Richard S. Westfall, and Curtis Wilson—not only gave my Guide a careful reading, sending me detailed commentaries for its improvement; these three colleagues also checked our translation and sent me many pages of detailed criticisms and useful suggestions for its improvement. I am particularly indebted to George Smith of Tufts University for having allowed me to make use of his as yet unpublished Companion to Newton’s Principia,
a detailed analysis of the Principia proposition by proposition. Smith used the text of our translation in his seminar on the Principia at Tufts during the academic year 1993/94 and again during 1997/98. Our final version has profited greatly from the suggestions of the students, who were required to study the actual text of the Principia from beginning to end. I am happy to be able to include in the Guide a general presentation he was written (in his dual capacity as a philosopher of science and a specialist in fluid mechanics) on the contents of book 2 and also two longish notes, one on planetary perturbations, the other on the motion of the lunar apsis. I have also included a note by Prof. Michael Nauenberg of the University of California, Santa Cruz, on his current research into the origins of some of Newton’s methods.
I am grateful to the University Library, Cambridge, for permission to quote extracts and translations of various Newton MSS. I gladly record here my deep gratitude to the staff and officers of the UL for their generosity, courtesy, kindness, and helpfulness over many years.
I am especially grateful to Robert S. Pirie for permission to reproduce the miniature portrait which serves as frontispiece to this work. The following illustrations are reproduced, with permission, from books in the Grace K. Babson Collection of the Works of Sir Isaac Newton, Burndy Library, Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology: the title pages of the first and second editions of the Principia; the half title, title page, and dedication of the third edition; and the diagrams for book 2, prop. 10, in the Jacquier and Le Seur edition of the Principia.
I gratefully record the continued and generous support of this project by the National Science Foundation, which also supported the prior production of our Latin edition with variant readings. Without such aid this translation and Guide would never have come into being.
Finally, I would like to thank the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for a grant that made it possible to add an index to the second printing.
ADDENDUM
I am particularly grateful to four colleagues who helped me read the proofs. Bruce Brackenridge checked the proofs of the Guide and shared with me many of his insights into the methods used by Newton in the Principia, while George Smith worked through the proofs of each section of the Guide and also helped me check the translation. Michael Nauenberg and William Harper helped me find errors in the Guide. A student, Luis Campos, gave me the benefit of his skill at proofreading.
I also gladly acknowledge the importance of correspondence with Mary Ann Rossi which helped me to clarify certain grammatical puzzles. Edmund J. Kelly kindly sent me the fruit of his detailed textual study of the Motte-Cajori version of the Principia.
Readers’ attention is called to three collections of studies that are either in process of publication or appeared too late to be used in preparing the Guide: Planetary Astronomy from the Renaissance to the Rise of Astrophysics, Part B: The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, ed. René Taton and Curtis Wilson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Isaac Newton’s Natural Philosophy, ed. Jed Buchwald and I. B. Cohen (Cambridge: MIT Press, forthcoming); and The Foundations of Newtonian Scholarship: Proceedings of the 1997 Symposium at the Royal Society, ed. R. Dalitz and M. Nauenberg (Singapore: World Scientific, forthcoming). Some of the chapters in these collections, notably those by Michael Nauenberg, either suggest revisions of the interpretations set forth in the Guide or offer alternative interpretations. Other contributions of Nauenberg are cited in the notes to the Guide.
A GUIDE TO
NEWTON’S PRINCIPIA
decorBy I. Bernard Cohen
with contributions by Michael Nauenberg (§3.9)
and George E. Smith (§§7.10, 8.8, 8.15, 8.16, and 10.19)
Abbreviations
Throughout the notes of the Guide, ten works are referred to constantly under the following standardized abbreviations:
A useful bibliographical guide to Newton’s writings and the vast secondary literature concerning Newton’s life, thought, and influence is Peter Wallis and Ruth Wallis, Newton and Newtoniana, 1672–1975: A Bibliography (Folkestone: Dawson, 1977). A generally helpful reference work is Derek Gjertsen, The Newton Handbook (London and New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).
The abbreviation ULC
in such references as ULC MS Add. 3968
refers to the University Library of Cambridge University.
CHAPTER ONE
A Brief History of the Principia
1.1 The Origins of the Principia
Isaac Newton’s Principia was published in 1687. The full title is Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, or Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. A revised edition appeared in 1713, followed by a third edition in 1726, just one year before the author’s death in 1727. The subject of this work, to use the name assigned by Newton in the first preface, is rational mechanics.
Later on, Leibniz introduced the name dynamics.
Although Newton objected to this name,¹ dynamics
provides an appropriate designation of the subject matter of the Principia, since force
is a primary concept of that work. Indeed, the Principia can quite properly be described as a study of a variety of forces and the different kinds of motions they produce. Newton’s eventual goal, achieved in the third of the three books
of which the Principia is composed, was to apply the results of the prior study to the system of the world, to the motions of the heavenly bodies. This subject is generally known today by the name used a century or so later by Laplace, celestial mechanics.
The history of how the Principia came into being has been told and retold.² In the summer of 1684, the astronomer Edmond Halley visited Newton in order to find out whether he could solve a problem that had baffled Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke, and himself: to find the planetary orbit that would be produced by an inverse-square central force. Newton knew the answer to be an ellipse.³ He had solved the problem of elliptical orbits earlier, apparently in the period 1679–1680 during the course of an exchange of letters with Hooke. When Halley heard Newton’s reply, he urged him to write up his results. With Halley’s prodding and encouragement, Newton produced a short tract which exists in several versions and will be referred to as De Motu⁴ (On Motion), the common beginning of all the titles Newton gave to the several versions. Once started, Newton could not restrain the creative force of his genius, and the end product was the Principia. In his progress from the early versions of De Motu to the Principia, Newton’s conception of what could be achieved by an empirically based mathematical science had become enlarged by several orders of magnitude.
As first conceived, the Principia consisted of two books
and bore the simple title De Motu Corporum (On the Motion of Bodies).⁵ This manuscript begins, as does the Principia, with a series of Definitions and Laws of Motion, followed by a book 1 whose subject matter more or less corresponds to book 1 of the Principia.⁶ The subject matter of book 2 of this early draft is much the same as that of book 3 of the Principia. In revising this text for the Principia, Newton limited book 1 to the subject of forces and motion in free spaces, that is, in spaces devoid of any resistance. Book 2 of the Principia contains an expanded version of the analysis of motion in resisting mediums, plus discussions of pendulums,⁷ of wave motion, and of the physics of vortices. In the Principia, the system of the world became the subject of what is there book 3, incorporating much that had been in the older book 2 but generally recast in a new form. As Newton explained in the final Principia, while introducing book 3, he had originally presented this subject in a popular manner, but then decided to recast it in a more mathematical form so that it would not be read by anyone who had not first mastered the principles of rational mechanics. Even so, whole paragraphs of the new book 3 were copied word for word from the old book 2.⁸
1.2 Steps Leading to the Composition and Publication of the Principia
The history of the development of Newton’s ideas concerning mechanics, more specifically dynamics, has been explored by many scholars and is still the subject of active research and study.⁹ The details of the early development of Newton’s ideas about force and motion, however interesting in their own right, are not directly related to the present assignment, which is to provide a reader’s guide to the Principia. Nevertheless, some aspects of this prehistory should be of interest to every prospective reader of the Principia. In the scholium to book 1, prop. 4, Newton refers to his independent discovery (in the 1660s) of the rule for the force in uniform circular motion (at speed v along a circle of radius r), a discovery usually attributed to Christiaan Huygens, who formally announced it to the world in his Horologium Oscillatorium of 1673.¹⁰ It requires only the minimum skill in algebraic manipulation to combine the rule with Kepler’s third law in order to determine that in a system of bodies in uniform circular motion the force is proportional to or is inversely proportional to the square of the distance. Of course, this computation does not of itself specify anything about the nature of the force, whether it is a centripetal or a centrifugal force or whether it is a force in the sense of the later Newtonian dynamics or merely a Cartesian conatus,
or endeavor. In a manuscript note Newton later claimed that at an early date, in the 1660s, he had actually applied the rule to the moon’s motion, much as he does later on in book 3, prop. 4, of the Principia, in order to confirm his idea of the force of gravity extending to the Moon.
¹¹ In this way he could counter Hooke’s allegation that he had learned the concept of an inverse-square force of gravity from Hooke.
A careful reading of the documents in question shows that sometime in the 1660s, Newton made a series of computations, one of which was aimed at proving that what was later known as the outward or centrifugal force arising from the earth’s rotation is less than the earth’s gravity, as it must be for the Copernican system to be possible. He then computed a series of forces. Cartesian vortical endeavors are not the kind of forces that, in the Principia, are exerted by the sun on the planets to keep them in a curved path or the similar force exerted by the earth on the moon. At this time, and for some years to come, Newton was deeply enmeshed in the Cartesian doctrine of vortices. He had no concept of a force of gravity
acting on the moon in anything like the later sense of the dynamics of the Principia. These Cartesian endeavors
(Newton used Descartes’s own technical term, conatus
) are the magnitude of the planets’ endeavors to fly out of their orbits. Newton concludes that since the cubes of the distances of the planets from the sun are reciprocally as the squared numbers of their revolutions in a given time,
their "conatus to recede from the Sun will be reciprocally as the squares of their distances from the Sun."¹²
Newton also made computations to show that the endeavor or conatus
of receding from the earth’s surface (caused by the earth’s daily rotation) is 12½ times greater than the orbital endeavor of the moon to recede from the earth. He concludes that the force of receding at the earth’s surface is 4000 and more times greater than the endeavor of the Moon to recede from the Earth.
In other words, Newton had discovered an interesting mathematical correlation within the solar vortex,
¹³ but he plainly had not as yet invented the radically new concept of a centripetal dynamical force, an attraction that draws the planets toward the sun and the moon toward the earth.¹⁴ There was no twenty years’ delay
(from the mid-1660s to the mid-1680s) in Newton’s publication of the theory of universal gravity, as was alleged by Florian Cajori.¹⁵
In 1679/80, Hooke initiated an exchange of correspondence with Newton on scientific topics. In the course of this epistolary interchange, Hooke suggested to Newton a hypothesis
of his own devising which would account for curved orbital motion by a combination of two motions: an inertial or uniform linear component along the tangent to the curve and a motion of falling inward toward a center. Newton told Hooke that he had never heard of this hypothesis.
¹⁶ In the course of their letters, Hooke urged Newton to explore the consequences of his hypothesis, advancing the opinion or guess that in combination with the supposition of an inverse-square law of solar-planetary force, it would lead to the true planetary motions.¹⁷ Hooke also wrote that the inverse-square law would lead to a rule for orbital speed being inversely proportional to the distance of a planet from the sun.¹⁸ Stimulated by Hooke, Newton apparently then proved that the solar-planetary force is as the inverse square of the distance, a first step toward the eventual Principia.
We cannot be absolutely certain of exactly how Newton proceeded to solve the problem of motion in elliptical orbits, but most scholars agree that he more or less followed the path set forth in the tract De Motu which he wrote after Halley’s visit a few years later in 1684.¹⁹ Essentially, this is the path from props. 1 and 2 of book 1 to prop. 4, through prop. 6, to props. 10 and 11. Being secretive by nature, Newton didn’t tell Hooke of his achievement. In any event, he would hardly have announced so major a discovery to a jealous professional rival, nor in a private letter. What may seem astonishing, in retrospect, is not that Newton did not reveal his discovery to Hooke, but that Newton was not at once galvanized into expanding his discovery into the eventual Principia.
Several aspects of the Hooke-Newton exchange deserve to be noted. First, Hooke was unable to solve the problem that arose from his guess or his intuition; he simply did not have sufficient skill in mathematics to be able to find the orbit produced by an inverse-square force. A few years later, Wren and Halley were equally baffled by this problem. Newton’s solution was, as Westfall has noted, to invert the problem, to assume the path to be an ellipse and find the force rather than investigating the path in an inverse-square force field.
²⁰ Second, there is no certainty that the tract De Motu actually represents the line of Newton’s thought after corresponding with Hooke; Westfall, for one, has argued that a better candidate would be an essay in English which Newton sent later to John Locke, a position he maintains in his biography of Newton.²¹ A third point is that Newton was quite frank in admitting (in private memoranda) that the correspondence with Hooke provided the occasion for his investigations of orbital motion that eventually led to the Principia.²² Fourth, as we shall see in §3.4 below, the encounter with Hooke was associated with a radical reorientation of Newton’s philosophy of nature that is indissolubly linked with the Principia. Fifth, despite Newton’s success in proving that an elliptical orbit implies an inverse-square force, he was not at that time stimulated—as he would be some four years later—to move ahead and to create modern rational mechanics. Sixth, Newton’s solution of the problems of planetary force depended on both his own new concept of a dynamical measure of force (as in book 1, prop. 6) and his recognition of the importance of Kepler’s law of areas.²³ A final point to be made is that most scholarly analyses of Newton’s thoughts during this crucial period concentrate on conceptual formulations and analytical solutions, whereas we know that both Hooke²⁴ and Newton made important use of graphical methods, a point rightly stressed by Curtis Wilson.²⁵ Newton, in fact, in an early letter to Hooke, wrote of Hooke’s acute Letter having put me upon considering . . . the species of this curve,
saying he might go on to add something about its description quam proxime,
²⁶ or by graphic methods. The final proposition in the Principia (book 3, prop. 42) declared its subject (in the first edition) to be: To correct a comet’s trajectory found graphically.
In the second and third editions, the text of the demonstration was not appreciably altered, but the statement of the proposition now reads: To correct a comet’s trajectory that has been found.
When Newton wrote up his results for Halley (in the tract De Motu) and proved (in the equivalent of book 1, prop. 11) that an elliptical orbit implies an inverse-square central force, he included in his text the joyous conclusion: Therefore the major planets revolve in ellipses having a focus in the center of the sun; and the radii to the sun describe areas proportional to the times, exactly [
omnino] as Kepler supposed.
²⁷ But after some reflection, Newton recognized that he had been considering a rather artificial situation in which a body moves about a mathematical center of force. In nature, bodies move about other bodies, not about mathematical points. When he began to consider such a two-body system, he came to recognize that in this case each body must act on the other. If this is true for one such pair of bodies, as for the sun-earth system, then it must be so in all such systems. In this way he concluded that the sun (like all the planets) is a body on which the force acts and also a body that gives rise to the force. It follows at once that each planet must exert a perturbing force on every other planet in the solar system. The consequence must be, as Newton recognized almost at once, that "the displacement of