Lectiones opticae annis MDCLXIX, MDCLXIX, MDCLXX & MDCLXXI. In scholis publicis habitae: et nunce primum ex MSS. In lucem editae

NEWTON, Sir Isaac

Edité par William Innys for the Royal Society, London, 1729

A propos de cet article

EDITIO PRINCEPS OF NEWTON'S CAMBRIDGE LECTURES ON OPTICS . First edition of the complete text, in the original Latin, of Newton's inaugural lectures as the second Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge, and the first publication of his lectures on his new mathematical science of colour, including his discovery of the compound nature of white light. It was from this material that Newton composed his Opticks of 1704, although in the Opticks he left out the specifically mathematical parts of the lectures which are included here. Newton "was obliged by the statutes of the post to lecture and to deposit the lectures in the University Library. For the period 1670-72 Newton lectured on optics and deposited the lectures in the ULC in October 1674. At one time Newton seemed to be contemplating publishing the lectures together with the mathematical work De methodis, but by May 1672 he had decided otherwise and wrote to Collins: 'I have now determined otherwise of them; finding already by the little use I have made of the Presse, that I shall not enjoy my former serene liberty till I have done with it' (Correspondence, I, p 161). Consequently, . the lectures remained unpublished until after his death [as did the De methodis]" (Gjertsen, pp. 409-410). Following Newton's death in March 1727, his followers decided to publish the lectures, both in the original Latin and in English. In fact, only Part I, on the mathematical theory of reflection and refraction, was translated and published in English, in 1728; part II, on colours, was omitted. The present Latin edition, which includes both parts, is thus the editio princeps of the complete series of Newton's lectures, including the first publication of his lectures on colours. Based on a copy belonging to David Gregory, it was discovered during the printing that there were discrepancies between Gregory's copy and the copy deposited by Newton in the ULC, which necessitated the inclusion of a five-page 'Addenda and Corrigenda'. "Today we can appreciate [the Lectiones] as an invaluable document of Newton's investigations of optics that reveals his ideas in the midst of his most productive period of research. In the inevitable comparison with the Opticks (1704), which recounts research for the most part carried out twenty to thirty years earlier and since refined - sometimes overrefined - the lectures must be judged neither as carefully developed nor as polished. But whatever polish it may lack is more than compensated for by its vitality, as Newton boldly attempts in the following pages to create a new mathematical science of color" (Shapiro, p. 25). Since the Lectiones "was his first and most comprehensive account of his theory of color, he naturally drew upon it in his later writings. It served as the immediate source for his 'New theory of light and colors' (1672) in the Philosophical Transactions, his first public statement of his theory outside the Cambridge lecture halls. And twenty years later it remained the foundation for the 'definitive' statement of his theory in Book I of the Opticks" (ibid., p. 1). This was the only separate edition of Newton's complete lectures: the text was published six more times in the eighteenth century, in various collections of Newton's works. Provenance: 'Ex-libris Dutour' on front free endpaper, followed by a price; some marginal notes in Latin. "Upon his appointment as [Isaac] Barrow's successor to the Lucasian chair in the late autumn of 1669, Newton was confronted with developing a series of lectures to begin the following January. In a natural extension to Barrow's prior series of optical lectures [published as Lectiones XVIII, 1669] he took the opportunity to make the first formal presentation of his new mathematical science of color. The Lucasian Professor was required to give one lecture for about one hour each week during the term and to submit annually not fewer than ten of those lectures to the Vice-Chancellor for deposit in the University.

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Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Lectiones opticae annis MDCLXIX, MDCLXIX, MDCLXX & MDCLXXI. In scholis publicis habitae: et nunce primum ex MSS. In lucem editae
• Éditeur: William Innys for the Royal Society, London
• Date de parution: 1729
• Édition: First edition.
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Classical Physics, Mechanics, Optics