Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Before Voltaire PDF full book. Access full book title Before Voltaire by J.B. Shank. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: J.B. Shank Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 022650932X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 457
Book Description
We have grown accustomed to the idea that scientific theories are embedded in their place and time. But in the case of the development of mathematical physics in eighteenth-century France, the relationship was extremely close. In Before Voltaire, J.B. Shank shows that although the publication of Isaac Newton’s Principia in 1687 exerted strong influence, the development of calculus-based physics is better understood as an outcome that grew from French culture in general. Before Voltaire explores how Newton’s ideas made their way not just through the realm of French science, but into the larger world of society and culture of which Principia was an intertwined part. Shank also details a history of the beginnings of calculus-based mathematical physics that integrates it into the larger intellectual currents in France at the time, including the Battle of the Ancients and the Moderns, the emergence of wider audiences for science, and the role of the newly reorganized Royal Academy of Sciences. The resulting book offers an unprecedented cultural history of one the most important and influential elements of Enlightenment science.
Author: Isaac Newton Publisher: Legare Street Press ISBN: 9781015496712 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Author: Sir Isaac Newton Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 0520321723 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 714
Book Description
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1934.
Author: Emilie Du Châtelet Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 0226168085 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 454
Book Description
Though most historians remember her as the mistress of Voltaire, Emilie Du Châtelet (1706–49) was an accomplished writer in her own right, who published multiple editions of her scientific writings during her lifetime, as well as a translation of Newton’s Principia Mathematica that is still the standard edition of that work in French. Had she been a man, her reputation as a member of the eighteenth-century French intellectual elite would have been assured. In the 1970s, feminist historians of science began the slow work of recovering Du Châtelet’s writings and her contributions to history and philosophy. For this edition, Judith P. Zinsser has selected key sections from Du Châtelet’s published and unpublished works, as well as related correspondence, part of her little-known critique of the Old and New Testaments, and a treatise on happiness that is a refreshingly uncensored piece of autobiography—making all of them available for the first time in English. The resulting volume will recover Châtelet’s place in the pantheon of French letters and culture.
Author: Nancy Mitford Publisher: New York Review of Books ISBN: 1590175786 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 281
Book Description
The inimitable Nancy Mitford’s account of Voltaire’s fifteen-year relationship with the Marquise du Châtelet—the renowned mathematician who introduced Isaac Newton’s revolutionary new physics to France—is a spirited romp in the company of two extraordinary individuals as well as an erudite and gossipy guide to French high society during the Enlightenment. Mitford’s story is as delicious as it is complicated. The marquise was in love with another mathematician, Maupertuis, while she had an unexpected rival for Voltaire’s affections in the future Frederick the Great of Prussia (and later in the philosophe’s own niece). There was, at least, no jealous husband to contend with: the Marquis du Châtelet, Mitford assures us, behaved perfectly. The beau monde of Paris was, however, distraught at the idea of the lovers’ brilliant conversation going to waste on the windswept hills of Champagne, site of the Château de Cirey, where experimental laboratories, a darkroom, and a library of more than twenty-one thousand volumes enabled them to pursue their amours philosophiques. From time to time the threat of impending arrest would send Voltaire scurrying across the border into Holland, but his irrepressible charm—and the interventions of powerful friends—always made it possible for him resume his studies with the cherished marquise.
Author: J.B. Shank Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 0226749479 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 590
Book Description
Nothing is considered more natural than the connection between Isaac Newton’s science and the modernity that came into being during the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Terms like “Newtonianism” are routinely taken as synonyms for “Enlightenment” and “modern” thought, yet the particular conjunction of these terms has a history full of accidents and contingencies. Modern physics, for example, was not the determined result of the rational unfolding of Newton’s scientific work in the eighteenth century, nor was the Enlightenment the natural and inevitable consequence of Newton’s eighteenth-century reception. Each of these outcomes, in fact, was a contingent event produced by the particular historical developments of the early eighteenth century. A comprehensive study of public culture, The Newton Wars and the Beginning of the French Enlightenment digsbelow the surface of the commonplace narratives that link Newton with Enlightenment thought to examine the actual historical changes that brought them together in eighteenth-century time and space. Drawing on the full range of early modern scientific sources, from studied scientific treatises and academic papers to book reviews, commentaries, and private correspondence, J. B. Shank challenges the widely accepted claim that Isaac Newton’s solitary genius is the reason for his iconic status as the father of modern physics and the philosophemovement.
Author: Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 019852675X Category : Celestial mechanics Languages : en Pages : 621
Book Description
Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica provides a coherent and deductive presentation of his discovery of the universal law of gravitation. It is very much more than a demonstration that 'to us it is enough that gravity really does exist and act according to the laws which wehave explained and abundantly serves to account for all the motions of the celestial bodies and the sea'. It is important to us as a model of all mathematical physics.Representing a decade's work from a distinguished physicist, this is the first comprehensive analysis of Newton's Principia without recourse to secondary sources. Professor Chandrasekhar analyses some 150 propositions which form a direct chain leading to Newton's formulation of his universal law ofgravitation. In each case, Newton's proofs are arranged in a linear sequence of equations and arguments, avoiding the need to unravel the necessarily convoluted style of Newton's connected prose. In almost every case, a modern version of the proofs is given to bring into sharp focus the beauty,clarity, and breath-taking economy of Newton's methods.Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar is one of the most reknowned scientists of the twentieth century, whose career spanned over 60 years. Born in India, educated at the University of Cambridge in England, he served as Emeritus Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics at theUniversity of Chicago, where he has was based from 1937 until his death in 1996. His early research into the evolution of stars is now a cornerstone of modern astrophysics, and earned him the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1983. Later work into gravitational interactions between stars, the properties offluids, magnetic fields, equilibrium ellipsoids, and black holes has earned him awards throughout the world, including the Gold Medal from the Royal Astronomical Society in London (1953), the National Medal of Science in the United States (1966), and the Copley Medal from the Royal Society (1984).His many publications include Radiative transfer (1950), Hydrodynamic and hydromagnetic stability (1961), and The mathematical theory of black holes (1983), each being praised for its breadth and clarity. Newton's Principia for the common reader is the result of Professor Chandrasekhar's profoundadmiration for a scientist whose work he believed is unsurpassed, and unsurpassable.
Author: Rene Descartes Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform ISBN: 9781523808229 Category : Languages : en Pages : 74
Book Description
Principles of Philosophy (Latin: Principia philosophiae) is a book by Rene Descartes. In essence it is a synthesis of the Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy It was written in Latin, published in 1644 and dedicated to Elisabeth of Bohemia, with whom Descartes had a long-standing friendship. A French version (Les Principes de la Philosophie) followed in 1647. It set forth the principles of nature-the Laws of Physics-as Descartes viewed them. Most notably, it set forth the principle that in the absence of external forces, an object's motion will be uniform and in a straight line. Newton borrowed this principle from Descartes and included it in his own Principia; to this day, it is still generally referred to as Newton's First Law of Motion. The book was primarily intended to replace the Aristotelian curriculum then used in French and British Universities. The work provides a systematic statement of his metaphysics and natural philosophy, and represents the first truly comprehensive, mechanistic account of the universe."
Author: Isaac Newton Publisher: Nicolae Sfetcu ISBN: 6060336477 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 616
Book Description
The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, by Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727) Translated into English by Andrew Motte (1693 - 1728) Published by Daniel Adee, 1846. Edited by N. W. Chittenden Images and text used from Wikisource (Public Domain) Addendum, by Nicolae Sfetcu: - Historical context: Action at a distance - The methodology of Isaac Newton - The dispute over the priority of the law of gravity Cover: Portrait of Isaac Newton (1642-1727), by Godfrey Kneller (1646–1723), oil on canvas, 1689, Collection Isaac Newton Institute (cropped and processed) The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (Latin: "Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica"), often abbreviated as Principia or Principia Mathematica, the Isaac Newton's masterpiece, was published in London on July 5, 1687. The text of the third edition in Latin, 1726 , will be revised and enriched for the last time by Newton, being generally considered as a reference. The book is one of the most important scientific books ever published, being the foundation of classical mechanics. It is considered by most physicists to be the most famous book in this field. Newton applies here the mathematical laws to the study of natural phenomena. The book contains Newton's laws of motion that formed the basis of Newtonian mechanics, as well as the universal law of gravity. Most translations of the book are based on Newton's third edition in 1726. The first translation, in 1729, belongs to Andrew Motte, republished in 1846 by Daniel Adee as the first American edition, edited by N. W. Chittenden. The book begins with definitions, laws, or axioms, followed by three parts (or "books") about "the motion of bodies" and "the system of the world." “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being... This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont, to be called Lord God παντοκρατωρ or Universal Ruler.” (Isaac Newton) ”The whole evolution of our ideas about the processes of nature … might be regarded as an organic development of Newton’s work.” (Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar)
Author: J.B. Shank
Author: Isaac Newton
Author: Sir Isaac Newton
Author: Emilie Du Châtelet
Author: Alfred North Whitehead
Author: Nancy Mitford
Author: J.B. Shank
Author: Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Author: Voltaire
Author: Rene Descartes
Author: Isaac Newton