Amazing experience

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TRGLDTE

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Today, I got to see, and touch (albeit clad with white gloves), a first edition of Newton's Principia (1683). The binding was too old and frail to allow a look inside, but I did get to page, extremely carefully, through a second edition (1713).
 
uscitizen said:
I have a couple of mid 1700's books on medical care. Barbaric!
Hard to read the old english as well....
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Well, that useless latin I took in high school came in handy here (finally), and since modern mathematical symbology had not yet been invented (i.e., no equal sign), he really didn't say F= M a, but he did create an expression in a rudimentary form of vector notation.

(My rough latin translation) The measure of the force is equal to the quantity of the mass multiplied by the rate of the motions change.
 
Troglodyte27 said:
Well, that useless latin I took in high school came in handy here (finally), and since modern mathematical symbology had not yet been invented (i.e., no equal sign), he really didn't say F= M a, but he did create an expression in a rudimentary form of vector notation.

(My rough latin translation) The measure of the force is equal to the quantity of the mass multiplied by the rate of the motions change.
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Oh, now you're giving me nightmares.

When I was taking college physics, I was seeing that old F = ma equation in my sleep. I must have done a thousand homework problems, with that newtonian equation.
 
Troglodyte27 said:
Well, that useless latin I took in high school came in handy here (finally), and since modern mathematical symbology had not yet been invented (i.e., no equal sign), he really didn't say F= M a, but he did create an expression in a rudimentary form of vector notation.

(My rough latin translation) The measure of the force is equal to the quantity of the mass multiplied by the rate of the motions change.
Click to expand...
I've seen photocopies, naturally, but that's not the same thing at all.

TOO cool! How did you come by the chance? That's something I'd camp in line for.
 
Troglodyte27 said:
Today, I got to see, and touch (albeit clad with white gloves), a first edition of Newton's Principia (1683). The binding was too old and frail to allow a look inside, but I did get to page, extremely carefully, through a second edition (1713).
Click to expand...


How amazing, I can only imagine how you felt!
 
froggie said:
How amazing, I can only imagine how you felt!
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Imagine it? Heck, I dreamed about it last night. No joke: I did. My dad and me in Trog's place. :)

The Principia is, in my opinion, perhaps the single most important book in the history of the world. Newton changed history more profoundly than all but a tiny handful of other people.

Hiya Froggie! How's every little thing?
 
OrnotBitwise said:
I've seen photocopies, naturally, but that's not the same thing at all.

TOO cool! How did you come by the chance? That's something I'd camp in line for.
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You know where I work. The library has a first, second and third edition. All three were on display for two hours on Friday. We were in the middle of a meeting with some significant customers, and rather than take the usual tour of my lab space during one of our breaks, we went to see (and touch!) these instead. A very rare opportunity, which they thought was totally cool.

I was pondering the value of these to the world - not monetary value of the books themselves, but the value of the ideas in them.
 
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