This book is a collection of twenty original essays on the history of science and mathematics, written in honor of D.T. Whiteside. The topics covered embrace the main themes of Whiteside's scholarly work, emphasizing Newtonian topics including: mathematics and astronomy, Newton's manuscripts, Newton's Principia, Newton and eighteenth-century mathematics and physics, and optics and dynamics after Newton. The focus of these themes gives the volume considerable coherence, and these essays make available important original work on Newton and the history of the exact sciences.

Building upon his pioneering investigation of the colours of thin films, Isaac Newton developed two influential theories, one on the structure of matter, explaining the colours of bodies and the other on fits, describing the periodicity of light. Professor Alan Shapiro, editor of The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton, recounts the development of these theories based on his study of Newton's unpublished manuscripts and analyses their experimental foundation. He also shows the essential role that Newton's philosophy of science played in the formulation and reception of these theories. The second...

The first volume of a three-volume complete edition of Newton's optical papers contains his Optical Lectures, delivered at Cambridge University between 1670 and 1672. The Lectures is Newton's first major scientific treatise, and consequently it represents a crucial link between his early years of discovery and his mature investigations and publications, such as the Optiks in 1704. It is divided into two parts: the first part devoted to color and the second to refraction. Originally published in 1984, this edition made available the complete text, together with translation and commentary, of...