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| Newton's Darkness. Two Dramatic Views | Buy a book...
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| Author(s): | C. Djerassi and D. Pinner |
| Publisher: | Imperial College Press |
| ISBN: | 186094390X |
| Format: | softback |
| 184pp | |
| Price: | £18.00 |
| Review Date: | 31 March 2004 |
| Review: | This book literally plays out two of Newton’s most bitter conflicts: with Robert Hooke and with Wilhelm Leibnitz, concentrating on the human aspects of Newton’s persona. The battle with Hooke lasted over thirty years, beginning with Hooke’s criticism of Newton’s paper on the ‘Theory of Light and Colours’. It came to a head when Hooke challenged Newton to prove his theory of gravity – which he eventually did. Even in his final years Newton was heard to mutter, “Damn Hooke, damn him.” The second play, Calculus, takes the form of a play-within-a-play and provides some insight into Newton’s long-running battle with Leibnitz concerning the invention of calculus. The matter was not clear-cut. It was the secretive Newton who was the first to conceive calculus, but it was Leibnitz who was the first to publish. Newton set up a commission of eleven Fellows of the Royal Society to settle who was the founder of calculus. The resulting report (which turned out to have been written by Newton) came out in favour of Newton. |