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NEWTON, ISAAC (b. Woolsthorpe, England,
25 December 1642; d. London, England, 20 March
1727), mathematics, dynamics, celestial mechanics,
astronomy, optics, natural philosophy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence was edited by H. G.
Alexander (Manchester, 1956).
11. Newton's Philosophy: The Rules of Philosophizing,
the General Scholium, the Queries of the Opticks. Among
the many books and articles on Newton's philosophy,
those of Rosenberger, Bloch, and Koyré (VI) are highly
recommended. On the evolution of the General Scholium,
see A. R. and M. B. Hall, Unpublished Papers (II), pt. IV,
intro. and sec. 8; and I. B. Cohen, Transformations of
Scientific Ideas (the Wiles Lectures, in press) (5) and
“Hypotheses in Newton's Philosophy,” in Physis, 8
(1966), 163-184.
The other studies of Newton's philosophy are far too
numerous to list here; authors include Gerd Buchdahl,
Ernst Cassirer, A. C. Crombie, N. R. Hanson, Ernst
Mach, Jürgen Mittelstrass, John Herman Randall, Jr.,
Dudley Shapere, Howard Stein, and E. W. Strong.
I. B. COHEN
SOVIET LITERATURE ON NEWTON
A profound and manifold study of Newton's life and
work began in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth
century; for earlier works see the article by T. P. Kravets,
cited below.
The foundation of Soviet studies on Newton was laid
by A. N. Krylov, who in 1915-1916 published the complete
Principia in Russian, with more than 200 notes and
supplements of a historical, philological, and mathematical
nature. More than a third of the volume is devoted to
supplements that present a complete, modern analytic
exposition of various theorems and proofs of the original
text, the clear understanding of which is often too difficult
for the modern reader: “Matematicheskie nachala
naturalnoy estestvennoy filosofii” (“The Mathematical
Principles of Natural Philosophy”), in Izvestiya Nikolaevskoi
morskoi akademii, 4-5 (1915-1916); 2nd ed. in
Sobranie trudov akademika A. N. Krylova (“Collected
Works of Academician A. N. Krylov”), VII (Moscow-Leningrad,
1936). Krylov devoted special attention to
certain of Newton's methods and demonstrated that after
suitable modification and development they could still be
of use. Works on this subject include “Besedy o sposobakh
opredelenia orbit komet i planet po malomu chislu
nabludenii” (“Discourse on Methods of Determining
Planetary and Cometary Orbits Based on a Limited
Number of Observations”), ibid., VI, 1-149; a series of
papers, ibid., V, 227-298; and “Nyutonova teoria
astronomicheskoy
refraktsii” (“Newton's Theory of Astronomical
Refraction”), ibid., V, 151-225; see also his “On a
Theorem
of Sir Isaac Newton,” in Monthly Notices of the Royal
Astronomical Society, 84 (1924), 392-395. On Krylov's
work, see A. T. Grigorian, “Les études Newtoniennes de
A. N. Krylov,” in I. B. Cohen and R. Taton, eds., Mélanges
Alexandre Koyré, II (Paris, 1964), 198-207.
A Russian translation of Newton's Observations on the
Prophecies ... of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John was
published simultaneously with the first Russian edition of
Principia as Zamechania na knigu Prorok Daniil i
Apokalipsis sv. Ioanna (Petrograd, 1916); the translator's
name is not given.
An elaborately annotated translation of Newton's
works on optics is S. I. Vavilov, ed., Optika ili traktat ob
otrazheniakh, prelomleniakh, izgibaniakh i tsvetakh sveta
(“Optics”; Moscow-Leningrad, 1927; 2nd ed., Moscow,
1954). Vavilov also published Russian translations of two
of Newton's essays, “Novaya teoria sveta i tsvetov” (“A
New Theory of Light and Colors”) and “Odna gipotesa,
obyasnyayushchaya svoystva sveta, izlozhennaya v neskolkikh
moikh statyakh” (“A Hypothesis Explaining the
Properties of Light Presented in Several of My Papers”), in
Uspekhi fizicheskikh nauk, 2 (1927), 121-163; and Lektsii
po optike (“Lectiones opticae”; Leningrad, 1946). Vavilov
was the first to study thoroughly the significance of the
last work in the development of physics.
Newton's mathematical works published by Castillon
in vol. I of Opuscula mathematica (1744) were translated
by D. D. Mordukhay-Boltovskoy as Matematicheskie
raboty (“Mathematical Works”; Moscow-Leningrad,
1937); the editor's 336 notes constitute nearly a third of the
volume. Arithmetica universalis was translated by A. P.
Youschkevitch with commentary as Vseobshchaya arifmetika
ili kniga ob arifmeticheskikh sintese i analise
(Moscow, 1948).
Many works dedicated to various aspects of Newton's
scientific activity and to his role in the development of
science were included in the tercentenary volumes Isaak
Nyuton. 1643-1727. Sbornik statey k trekhsotletiyu so dnya
rozhdenia, S. I. Vavilov, ed. (Moscow-Leningrad, 1943);
and Moskovsky universitet—pamyati Nyutona—sbornik
statey (Moscow, 1946). These works are cited below as
Symposium I and Symposium II, respectively.
Z. A. Zeitlin, in Nauka i gipotesa (“Science and
Hypothesis”;
Moscow-Leningrad, 1926), studied the problem
of Newton's methodology, particularly the roles of Bentley
and Cotes in preparing the 2nd ed. of the Principia, and
emphasized that both scientists had falsified Newtonian
methods; the majority of other authors did not share his
viewpoint. In “Efir, svet i veshchestvo v fisike Nyutona”
(“Ether, Light, and Matter in Newton's Physics”), in
Symposium I, 33-52, S. I. Vavilov traced the evolution of
Newton's views on the hypothesis of the ether, the theory
of light, and the structure of matter. Vavilov also dealt
with Newton's methods and the role of hypothesis in
ch. 10 of his biography Isaak Nyuton (Moscow-Leningrad,
1943; 2nd ed., rev. and enl., 1945; 3rd ed., 1961). The
3rd ed. of this work appeared in vol. III of Vavilov's
Sobranie sochinenii (“Selected Works”; Moscow, 1956),
which contains all of Vavilov's papers on Newton. The
biography also appeared in German trans. (Vienna, 1948;
Berlin, 1951).
B. M. Hessen in Sotsialno-ekonomicheskie korni mekhaniki
Nyutona (“The Socioeconomic Roots of Newton's
Mechanics”), presented to the Second International
Congress of the History of Science and Technology held
in London in 1931 (Moscow-Leningrad, 1933), attempted
to analyze the origin and development of Newton's work
in Marxist terms. Hessen examined the Principia in the