In this book, Greenberg investigates the spread of Newtonian physics in the French scientific community during the eighteenth century. His central thesis is that Newton's own publications contributed only a small part of the work done on the shape of the earth. Continental scholars, especially Leibniz, influenced developments in Paris, and other French scholars, including Bouguer and Maupertuis, all contributed work used by Alexis-Claude Clairaut in developing his mature theory of the earth's shape. The evolution of Parisian physics, then, proved to be not merely the replacement of one...

In this book, Greenberg investigates the spread of Newtonian physics in the French scientific community during the eighteenth century. His central thesis is that Newton's own publications contributed only a small part of the work done on the shape of the earth. Continental scholars, especially Leibniz, influenced developments in Paris, and other French scholars, including Bouguer and Maupertuis, all contributed work used by Alexis-Claude Clairaut in developing his mature theory of the earth's shape. The evolution of Parisian physics, then, proved to be not merely the replacement of one...