The aim of this collection is to present the surviving papers of Isaac Newton's scientific writings, along with sufficient commentary to clarify the particularity of seventeenth-century idiom and to illuminate the contemporary significance of the text discussed.

This last volume of Newton's mathematical papers presents the extant record of the investigations which he pursued during the last quarter of his life.

The fifth volume of this definitive edition centres around Newton's Lucasian lectures on algebra, purportedly delivered during 1673-83, and subsequently prepared for publication under the title Arithmetica Universalis many years later. Dr Whiteside first reproduces the text of the lectures deposited by Newton in the Cambridge University Library about 1684. In these much reworked, not quite finished, professional lectiones, Newton builds upon his earlier studies of the fundamentals of algebra and its application to the theory and construction of equations, developing new techniques for the factorizing of algebraic quantities and the delimitation of bounds to the number and location of roots, with a wealth of worked arithmetical, geometrical, mechanical and astronomical problems. An historical introduction traces what is known of the background to the parent manuscript and assesses the subsequent impact of the edition prepared by Whiston about 1705 and the revised version published by Newton himself in 1722. A number of minor worksheets, preliminary drafts and later augmentations buttress this primary text, throwing light upon its development and the essential untrustworthiness of its imposed marginal chronology.

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 both surviving versions of the Lectures, a draft and a vastly expanded revision. Until the time of publication, scholars had to depend on an uncritical text of the revision and an inadequate partial English translation, both published shortly after Newton's death. Professor Shapiro's critical edition has made a great contribution to the study of Newtonian science.

An analysis of Newton's mathematical work, from early discoveries to mature reflections, and a discussion of Newton's views on the role and nature of mathematics. Historians of mathematics have devoted considerable attention to Isaac Newton's work on algebra, series, fluxions, quadratures, and geometry. In Isaac Newton on Mathematical Certainty and Method, Niccolò Guicciardini examines a critical aspect of Newton's work that has not been tightly connected to Newton's actual practice: his philosophy of mathematics. Newton aimed to inject certainty into natural philosophy by deploying mathematical reasoning (titling his main work The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy most probably to highlight a stark contrast to Descartes's Principles of Philosophy). To that end he paid concerted attention to method, particularly in relation to the issue of certainty, participating in contemporary debates on the subject and elaborating his own answers. Guicciardini shows how Newton carefully positioned himself against two giants in the “common” and “new” analysis, Descartes and Leibniz. Although his work was in many ways disconnected from the traditions of Greek geometry, Newton portrayed himself as antiquity's legitimate heir, thereby distancing himself from the moderns. Guicciardini reconstructs Newton's own method by extracting it from his concrete practice and not solely by examining his broader statements about such matters. He examines the full range of Newton's works, from his early treatises on series and fluxions to the late writings, which were produced in direct opposition to Leibniz. The complex interactions between Newton's understanding of method and his mathematical work then reveal themselves through Guicciardini's careful analysis of selected examples. Isaac Newton on Mathematical Certainty and Method uncovers what mathematics was for Newton, and what being a mathematician meant to him.

The aim of this collection is to present the surviving papers of Isaac Newton's scientific writings, along with sufficient commentary to clarify the particularity of seventeenth-century idiom and to illuminate the contemporary significance of the text discussed.

The aim of this collection is to present the surviving papers of Isaac Newton's scientific writings, along with sufficient commentary to clarify the particularity of seventeenth-century idiom and to illuminate the contemporary significance of the text discussed.