This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
For more on Newton and comets, see Simon Schaffer, “Newton’s Comets and the Transformation of Astrology,” in Astrology and Science and Society: Historical Essays, Patrick Curry, ed. (Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press, 1987), pp. 219–243; and Sara J. Schechner, Comets, Popular Culture, and the Birth of Modern Cosmology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), especially chapters 6 and 7. For information on the 1680–1 comet and Newton’s calculation of the end of the world, I am grateful to Sara Schechner (via the Internet).
Isaac Newton, De Mundi Systemate (A Treatise on the System of the World), English trans. (London: Dawsons, 1969). The most recent translation of the Principia is Isaac Newton, The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman, trans. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999). For a scholarly version, with delineations among the three editions, see Isaac Newton’s “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica,” 2 vols, I. Bernard Cohen and Alexandre Koyrè, eds. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972). Indispensable is The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol. 2 (1676–1687), H.W. Turnbull, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University of Press, 1960).
Kepler’s Mysterium Cosmographicum has been translated as The Secret of the Universe, by A.M. Duncan (New York: Abaris Books, 1981), material quoted from pp. 83 and 91.
My argument on Kepler’s celestial magnetism is support by passages in his Epitome of Copernican Astronomy (1618–1621). I have used the translation of sections of this work from volume 16 of the Great Books of the Western World (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1939). See especially pp. 899 and 935–940.
For her invaluable assistance with Latin translations here and throughout this book, I am grateful to Professor Jan McTavish, Alcorn State University, Mississippi.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Topper, D.R. (2007). A Change of Mind: Newton and the Comet(s?) of 1680 and 1681. In: Quirky Sides of Scientists. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-71019-8_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-71019-8_11
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-71018-1
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-71019-8
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)