Dry, Sarah (Author)
When Isaac Newton died at 85 without a will on March 20, 1727, he left a mass of disorganized papers--upwards of 8 million words--that presented an immediate challenge to his heirs. Most of these writings, on subjects ranging from secret alchemical formulas to impassioned rejections of the Holy Trinity to notes and calculations on his core discoveries in calculus, universal gravitation, and optics, were summarily dismissed by his heirs as "not fit to be printed." Rabidly heretical, alchemically obsessed, and possibly even mad, the Newton presented in these papers threatened to undermine not just his personal reputation but the status of science itself. As a result, the private papers of the world's greatest scientist remained hidden to all but a select few for over two hundred years. In The Newton Papers, Sarah Dry divulges the story of how this secret archive finally came to light--and the complex and contradictory man it revealed. Covering a broad swath of history, Dry explores who controlled Newton's legacy, who helped uncover him, and what, finally, we know about him today, nearly three hundred years after his death. The Newton Papers presents the eclectic group of collectors, scholars, and scientists who were motivated to track down and collect Newton's private thoughts and obsessions, many of whom led extraordinary lives themselves--from economist John Maynard Keynes to Abraham Yahuda, a friend of Albert Einstein and key figure in the founding of Israel. The 300-year history of the disappearance, dispersal and eventual rediscovery of Newton's papers exposes how Newton has been made, and re-made, at the hands of unique and idiosyncratic individuals, reflecting the changing status of science over the centuries.
...MoreReview Steffen Ducheyne (2016) Review of "The Newton Papers: The Strange and True Odyssey of Isaac Newton's Manuscripts". Historia Mathematica (pp. 342-345).
Review Henderson, Felicity (2015) Review of "The Newton Papers: The Strange and True Odyssey of Isaac Newton's Manuscripts". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 702-703).
Review Beeley, Philip (2015) Review of "The Newton Papers: The Strange and True Odyssey of Isaac Newton's Manuscripts". Physics in Perspective (pp. 74-79).
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(2016)
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Cohen, I. Bernard;
Smith, George E.;
(2002)
The Cambridge Companion to Newton
(/isis/citation/CBB000201230/)
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Niccolò Guicciardini;
(2021)
Isaac Newton: Filosofo della Natura, interprete della Scrittura, cronologo degli Antichi Regni
(/isis/citation/CBB698089545/)
Chapter
Popkin, Richard H.;
(2004)
Plans for Publishing Newton's Religious and Alchemical Manuscripts, 1982-1998
(/isis/citation/CBB000500764/)
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Leshem, Ayval;
(2003)
Newton on Mathematics and Spiritual Purity
(/isis/citation/CBB000320214/)
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Didier Kahn;
(2017)
L'alchimie à livres ouverts: En quête des secrets de la matière: livres et manuscrits du XVIe au XXe siècle
(/isis/citation/CBB851768762/)
Thesis
Lin, Yii-Jan Chen;
(2014)
The Erotic Life of Manuscripts: A History of New Testament Textual Criticism and the Biological Sciences
(/isis/citation/CBB001567633/)
Article
Zhaoyuan Wan;
(2018)
Newton in China: Translating the Principia into Chinese (c. 1855–2015)
(/isis/citation/CBB579089803/)
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Nauenberg, M.;
(2010)
The Early Application of the Calculus to the Inverse Square Force Problem
(/isis/citation/CBB001021999/)
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Erlichson, Herman;
(2003)
Passage to the Limit in Proposition I, Book I of Newton's Principia
(/isis/citation/CBB000410829/)
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Connollyab, Patrick J.;
(2014)
Newton and God's Sensorium
(/isis/citation/CBB001451738/)
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Stephen D. Snobelen;
(2021)
Theology in Newton’s Study of Alchemy, Chronology and Nature
(/isis/citation/CBB539129392/)
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Olaf L. Mueller;
(2016)
Prismatic Equivalence – A New Case of Underdetermination: Goethe vs. Newton on the Prism Experiments
(/isis/citation/CBB847582954/)
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Heymann, Matthias;
(2000)
Vom albatros zur “idealen windmühle”: Zum vorsprung dänischer aerodynamik um die jahrhundertwende
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Paolo Casini;
(2006)
Hypotheses non fingo: tra Newton e Kant
(/isis/citation/CBB557395471/)
Book
Osler, Margaret J.;
(2000)
Rethinking the scientific revolution
(/isis/citation/CBB000110137/)
Essay Review
Guicciardini, Niccolò;
(2013)
Harper and Ducheyne on Newton
(/isis/citation/CBB001566365/)
Article
Dupré, Sven;
(2008)
Newton's Telescope in Print: The Role of Images in the Reception of Newton's Instrument
(/isis/citation/CBB000831781/)
Chapter
Assis, André K. T.;
(2010)
Newton and Inverse Problems
(/isis/citation/CBB001250579/)
Article
Baillon, Jean-François;
(2009)
Two Eighteenth-Century Translators of Newton's Opticks: Pierre Coste and Jean-Paul Marat
(/isis/citation/CBB001021571/)
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