Abstract
On August 28, 1686, the manuscript of Newton’s Principia was presented to the Royal Society. The book was dedicated to the Society, and the fellows “were so very sensible of the Great Honour” that they considered printing the book at the Society’s expenses. According to Halley’s account, one fellow was less enthusiast than others about that “incomparable treatise.” “Mr Hooke,” Halley wrote to Newton, “has some pretentions upon the inventions of ye rule of the decrease of Gravity, being the square of the distances from the Center.” A controversy between the two men soon sparked. Hooke, on the one hand, acknowledged that only Newton successfully demonstrated how gravity leads to the elliptic orbits of planets. He claimed that Newton adopted “the notion” of the inverse square law from him, and expected to be mentioned in the preface of that “incomparable treatise.” Newton, on the other hand, refused that claim altogether. He countered that he knew the inverse square law long before he discussed it with Hooke, who probably had it from Wren and Borelli. For this reason, his name was mentioned in the System of the World along those of the other two scholars. Newton would concede nothing more.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Guicciardini (2018), 147.
- 2.
Newton (1959–1977), vol. II, 431.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
Trinity College Library, Cambridge, MS. 0.11a.1/16; cf. Pugliese (1989), 200.
- 7.
- 8.
Birch (1756–57), vol. IV, 347.
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
Newton (1756–77), vol. II, 313.
- 12.
- 13.
Newton (1956–77), vol. II, 437.
- 14.
- 15.
- 16.
Borelli (1666), 32.
- 17.
Hooke (1705), 114, 132.
- 18.
Gal (2006), 45; Gal and Chen Morris (2005), 391–2, 397.
- 19.
- 20.
- 21.
- 22.
Huygens (1888–1950), vol. XXI, 458, 471.
- 23.
- 24.
- 25.
- 26.
Hooke (1678), 228, 247.
- 27.
Id. (1674), 6.
- 28.
- 29.
- 30.
- 31.
Hooke (1705), 88, 177.
- 32.
Newton (1956–77), vol. II, 446.
- 33.
Guicciardini (2009), 27.
- 34.
Trinity College Library, Cambridge, Ms. 0.11a.1/16.
- 35.
- 36.
- 37.
Newton (1962), 400–1.
- 38.
- 39.
Cambridge University Library MS 3970, f. 473r.
- 40.
- 41.
Newton (1956–77), vol. I, 368; vol. II, 229.
- 42.
Id. (1962), 407.
- 43.
Henry (2011), 20.
- 44.
Hall (1998), 56–7.
- 45.
Henry (1986), 344.
- 46.
- 47.
Newton (1956–77), vol. I, 364–6.
- 48.
- 49.
- 50.
- 51.
Whiteside (1970), 13.
- 52.
Newton (1956–77), vol. II, 307, 309.
- 53.
Cambridge University Library MS 4004, f. 103r-v.
- 54.
Newton (1955–77), vol. II, 337–8, 341; Guicciardini (2011), 129.
- 55.
Cambridge University Library MS 3965, f. 613r; cf. Ruffner (2000), 262–3.
- 56.
Whiteside (1970), 14.
- 57.
- 58.
- 59.
- 60.
Newton (1779–85), vol. IV, 224.
- 61.
Ibid., 226–7; cf. Mamiani and Trucco (1991), 87–95.
- 62.
Newton (1692), 256–7.
- 63.
Newton (1779–85), vol. IV, 242–51.
- 64.
Westfall (1971), 378.
- 65.
Hauksbee (1706–07), 2223.
- 66.
- 67.
Newton (1962), 400.
- 68.
Id. (1779–85), vol. IV, 251–63.
- 69.
Westfall (1971), 384, 412 n.142.
- 70.
- 71.
Guerlac (1977), 108.
- 72.
- 73.
- 74.
Hauksbee (1719), 99–100, 200–1, 202, 204, 208.
- 75.
Cf. Newton (1959–77), vol. I, 416.
Bibliography
Aiton, Eric. 1972. The vortex theory of planetary motion. London: Mcdonald.
Applebaum, Wilbur. 1996. Keplerian astronomy after Kepler. History of Science 34: 451–504.
Bennett, Jim. 1989. Magnetical philosophy and astronomy from Wilkins to Hooke. In Planetary astronomy from the renaissance to the rise of astrophysics, part A: Tycho Brahe to Newton, ed. R. Taton and C. Wilson, 222–230. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bertoloni Meli, Domenico. 2005. Who is afraid of centrifugal force? Early Science and Medicine 10: 535–541.
———. 2006a. Thinking with objects: The transformation of mechanics in the seventeenth century. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
———. 2006b. Inherent and centrifugal forces in Newton. Archive for History of Exact Sciences 60: 319–335.
Birch, Thomas. 1756–1957. The history of the Royal Society of London, 4 vols. London.
Boas, Marie. 1952. The establishment of the mechanical philosophy. Osiris 10: 412–541.
Borelli, Giovanni Alfonso. 1666. Theoricae mediceorum planetarum. Florence: Ex Typographia S.M.D.
Boulliau, Ismaël. 1645. Astronomia philolaica. Paris: Simeonis Piget.
Casini, Paolo. 1997. “Magis amica veritas”: Newton e Descartes. Rivista di filosofia 88: 197–221.
Ducheyne, Steffen. 2012. The main business of natural philosophy: Isaac Newton’s natural philosophical methodology. Dordrecht: Springer.
———. 2014. Newton on action at a distance. Journal of the History of Philosophy 52: 675–701.
Erlichson, Herman. 1997. Hooke’s September 1685 ellipse vertices construction and Newton’s instantaneous impulse construction. Historia Mathematica 24: 167–184.
Fiocca, Alessandra. 1998. The southern deviation of freely falling bodies: From Robert Hooke’s hypothesis to Edwin Hall’s experiment (1679–1902). Physis 35: 51–83.
Gal, Ofer. 2002. Meanest foundations and nobler superstructures: Hooke, Newton and the “compounding of the celestial motions of the planetts”. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
———. 2005. The invention of celestial mechanics. Early Science and Medicine 10: 529–534.
Gal, Ofer, and Raz Chen-Morris. 2005. The archaeology of the inverse square law: (1) metaphysical images and mathematical practices. History of Science 43: 391–414.
———. 2006. The archaeology of the inverse square law: (2) the use and non-use of mathematics. History of Science 44: 49–67.
Guerlac, Henry. 1967. Newton’s optical aether. Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 22: 45–57.
———. 1977. Essays and papers in the history of modern science. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Guicciardini, Niccolò. 1998. Newton: un filosofo della natura e il sistema del mondo. Milan: Le Scienze.
———. 2005. Reconsidering the Hooke-Newton debate on gravitation: Recent results. Early Science and Medicine 10: 511–517.
———. 2009. Isaac Newton on mathematical certainty and method. Cambridge, MA/London: MIT Press.
Guicciardini, Niccoló. 2011. Newton. Rome: Carocci.
———. 2018. Isaac Newton and natural philosophy. London: Reaktion Books.
Hall, Alfred Rupert. 1998. Isaac Newton and the aerial nitre. Notes and Records of the Royal Society 52: 51–61.
Hauksbee, Francis. 1706–07. An experiment made at Gresham College. Philosophical Transactions 25: 2223–2224.
———. 1709. Physico-mechanical experiments on various subjects. London: Printed by R. Brugis.
———. 1719. Physico-mechanical experiments on various subjects. London: Printed for J. Senex; and W. Taylor.
Heilbron, John. 1979. Electricity in the 17th and 18th centuries. Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press.
Henry, John. 1986. Occult qualities and the experimental philosophy: Active principles in pre-Newtonian matter theory. History of Science 24: 335–381.
———. 1989. Robert Hooke, the incongruous mechanist. In Robert Hooke: New studies, ed. Michael Hunter and Simon Schaffer, 149–180. Woodbridge: Boydell Press.
———. 1992. The scientific revolution in England. In The scientific revolution in national context, ed. Roy Porter and Mikuláš Teich, 178–209. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2011. Gravity and De gravitatione: The development of Newton’s ideas on action at a distance. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 42: 11–27.
Home, Roderick. 1981. The effluvial theory of electricity. New York: Arno Press.
———. 1985. Force, electricity, and the powers of the living matter in Newton’s mature philosophy of nature. In Religion, science and worldview: Essays in honor of Richard S. Westfall, ed. Margaret Osler and Paul Lawrence Farber, 95–117. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 1993. Newton’s subtle matter: The Opticks queries and the mechanical philosophy. In Renaissance and revolution: Humanists, scholars, craftsmen and natural philosophers in early modern Europe, ed. J.V. Field and Frank A. James, 193–202. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hooke, Robert. 1674. An attempt to prove the motion of the earth by observations. London.
———. 1705. Posthumous works, ed. Richard Waller. London.
Huygens, Christiaan. 1888–1950. Oeuvres completes, 22 vols., ed. Société hollandaise des sciences. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Janiak, Andrew. 2008. Newton as philosopher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kochiras, Hylarie. 2008. Force, matter, and metaphysics in Newton’s natural philosophy. Phd Dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
———. 2009. Gravity and Newton’s substance counting problem. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 40: 267–280.
Koyré, Alexandre. 1968. Newtonian studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lohne, Johs. 1960. Hooke versus Newton: An analysis of the documents in the case of free fall and planetary motion. Centaurus 7: 6–52.
Machamer, Peter, J.E. McGuire, and Hylarie Kochiras. 2012. Newton and the mechanical philosophy: Gravitation as the balance of the heavens. The Southern Journal of Philosophy 50: 370–388.
Mamiani, Maurizio, and Emanuela Trucco. 1991. Newton e i fenomeni della vita. Nuncius 6: 69–96.
Nauenberg, Michael. 1994. Hooke, orbital motion and Newton’s Principia. American Journal of Physics 62: 331–350.
———. 1998. On Hooke’s 1685 manuscript on orbital mechanics. Historia Mathematica 25: 89–93.
———. 2005. Hooke’s and Newton’s contributions to the early development of orbital dynamics and the theory of universal gravitation. Early Science and Medicine 10: 518–528.
———. 2006. Robert Hooke’s seminal contribution to orbital dynamics. In Robert Hooke: Tercentennial studies, ed. Michael Cooper and Michael Hunter, 3–32. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Newton, Isaac. 1779–85. Opera quae extant omnia, 5 vols., ed. Samuel Horsley, London.
———. 1959–77. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, 7 vols., ed. H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall and L. Tilling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 1962. In Unpublished scientific papers, ed. Alfred Rupert Hall and Marie Boas Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 1999. In The Principia: Mathematical principles of natural philosophy, ed. I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman. Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press.
Patterson, Louise Diehl. 1949. Hooke’s gravitation theory and its influence on Newton I: Hooke’s gravitation theory. Isis 40: 327–341.
———. 1950. Hooke’s gravitation theory and its influence on Newton II: The insufficiency of the traditional estimate. Isis 41: 32–45.
Pugliese, Patri. 1989. Robert Hooke and the dynamics of motion in a curved path. In Robert Hooke: New studies, ed. Michael Hunter and Simon Schaffer, 181–205. Woodbridge: Boydell Press.
Ruffner, James. 2000. Newton’s propositions on comets: Steps in transition, 1681–1684. Archive for History of Exact Sciences 54: 259–277.
Schofield, Robert. 1970. Mechanism and materialism: British natural philosophy in the age of reason. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Van Helden, Albert. 1974. The telescope in the seventeenth century. Isis 65: 38–58.
Westfall, Richard. 1970. Uneasy fitful reflections on fits of easy transmission. In The annus mirabilis of Isaac Newton 1666–1966, ed. Robert Palter, 88–104. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
———. 1971. Force in Newton’s physics: The science of dynamics in the seventeenth century. New York: American Elsevier.
———. 1972a. Circular motion in the seventeenth mechanics. Isis 63: 184–190.
———. 1972b. Robert Hooke (1635–1703). In Dictionary of scientific biography, ed. Charles Gillispie, vol. VI, 481–488. New York: Scribner.
———. 1983. Never at rest: A biography of Isaac Newton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Whiteside, Derek. 1970. Before the Principia: The maturing of Newon’s thoughts on dynamical astronomy, 1664–1684. Journal for the History of Astronomy 1: 5–19.
———. 1991. The prehistory of the Principia from 1664 to 1686. Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 54: 11–61.
Wilson, Curtis. 1970. From Kepler’s laws, so-called, to universal gravitation: Empirical factors. Archive for History of Exact Sciences 6: 89–170.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sacco, F.G. (2020). Beyond Priority. In: Real, Mechanical, Experimental. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 231. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44451-8_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44451-8_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-44450-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-44451-8
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)