Most of us likely first heard the name Isaac Newton when we were in primary school. For some, it may have been in a classroom; for others it may have been while viewing a television program – most likely a cartoon. However, in most all instances, I’d be willing to wager that the name was […]
Upon discovering the subject of Mark Avery’s most recent Sunday Book Review, I found myself suddenly musing upon one of Rembrandt’s most famous paintings, “Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer” (also sometimes known as “Aristotle with a Bust of Homer”) for indeed, in this review we have one significant figure of, in this case, modern British natural history and conservation, musing over – here, a new addition to – the embodiment of an older collection of works to which his own owe something of their own foundation.
As the fifth day of July this year marked the 330th anniversary of the publication of Sir Issac Newton’s monumental Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, it seems appropriate that a new book about him should be published only a few days later. However rather than focusing on his mathematical ideas, this one takes his religious ones as its subject.
While some may let pass the 5th of July with little more than a shrug, those in the scientific “know” mark it with reverence as it was the day in 1687 that saw the publication of one of the most – perhaps even the most – important works on time, force, and motion ever written: Sir Isaac Newton’s “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica” (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy).