Paperback(Reprint)
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Overview
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781633885684 |
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Publisher: | Prometheus Books |
Publication date: | 04/16/2019 |
Edition description: | Reprint |
Pages: | 528 |
Sales rank: | 729,875 |
Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.50(d) |
About the Author
Colin Pask (Canberra, Australia) is the author of Math for the Frightened: Facing Scary Symbols and Everything Else That Freaks You Out about Mathematics. He is an emeritus professor of mathematics and a visiting fellow and professor in the School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences at the University of New South Wales in Canberra, Australia.
Read an Excerpt
Preface to the Paperback Edition:
The ancient fascination with the heavens is as strong as ever today as advances in science and engineering create new methods for space exploration. We now routinely use satellites in such things as GPS navigational systems and orbiting telescopes give us results with remarkable resolution. We plan trajectories to visit Mars, search for a ninth planet in the outer reaches of our solar system, and space tourism is about to become a reality. The detection of gravitational waves tells us about the very far reaches of the universe while exoplanets have been located orbiting the stars nearest to Earth.
The tools we use to examine those possibilities and plan our exploration of space were first developed by Isaac Newton in his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (the Principia). However, even more than that, Newton introduces and shows how to use the scientific way of thinking that underpins so much in our modern way of life. The Principia is the first comprehensive book on science as we know it today. It remains as relevant today as it was three hundred years ago, for as Einstein put it, Newton’s “clear and wide ideas will forever retain their significance as the foundation on which our modern conceptions of physics have been built.”
As an example of that Newton suggested that we can understand the properties of matter on the large or macroscopic scale in terms of the interactions of its microscopic or atomic constituents. His demonstration of this approach for gases and liquids anticipated a vast amount of modern science.
The Principia is indeed one of the "Great Books”. It is one of the treasures of our civilization ranking alongside Homer’s Odyssey, Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Dicken’s Great Expectations. Sadly, despite its supreme importance, in comparison the Principia tends to be ignored. The book you now hold aims to change all that. It provides a step-by-step guide to the Principia, its background, contents and implications. You too can appreciate this unrivalled breakthrough moment on the road to our modern world.
I am delighted that this new edition of Magnificent Principia will allow even more people to explore Newton’s masterpiece and learn about the origins of modern science.
Colin Pask
December 2018
Table of Contents
Preface to the Paperback Edition of Magnificent Principia 1
Preface to the Hardcover Edition of Magnificent Principia: Why You Should Read This Book 11
Acknowledgments 17
Plan of the Book and Reading Plans 19
Part 1 Introductory Material 21
1 Introducing Our Hero 23
2 Setting the Scene 41
3 A First Look at the Principia 72
Part 2 How The Principia Begins 87
4 Newton's Preface: Setting Out Methods and Aims 89
5 Fundamentals 98
6 Newton's Laws of Motion and Their Immediate Consequences 123
7 Mathematical Methods 148
Part 3 Developing The Basics Of Dynamics 169
8 Down to Business 171
9 What Isaac Did Next: Finding Forces 188
10 The Inverse-Square Law: Triumph and Controversy 202
11 Interlude: The Modern Formulation 220
12 Time and a Mathematical Gem 233
13 Completing the Single-Body Formalism 249
14 Rotating Orbits 267
Part 4 On To More Complex Situations 281
15 Constrained Motion 283
16 Many Bodies: Triumphs and Challenges 293
17 Big Bodies and Superb Theorems 316
18 Here Endeth Book I 332
Part 5 About Principia Book II 339
19 Starting on Book II 341
20 Newton the Experimentalist 361
21 What Lies Beneath 376
Part 6 The Majestic Principia Book III 391
22 Book III and Gravity 393
23 Theory of the Solar System 412
24 Earthly Phenomena 423
25 Challenges: The Moon and Comets 441
26 The Concluding General Scholium 460
Part 7 Reception And Influence Of Principia 471
27 Reception and Influence 473
28 Mechanics after Newton 491
Epilogue 509
Notes 513
Index 523