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Newton's "Principia" stolen
Silverleaf writes "O2 have a story on the theft of Isaac Newton's revolutionary "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica" from a Russian museum. For the non-physicists among you, Newton first published his famed three laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation in "Principia" in 1687. I'm surprised this theft hasn't attracted more attention in the mainstream media, since "Principia" is generally considered the most important scientific works in history."
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Perhaps there should be link to the library as well. Their online exhibitions section has some interesting links for a literature buff.
He didn't listen to Leibnitz beause he was an egostical maniac, as well as a genuis. Newton independantly invented much of calculus at the same time as Liebnitz, but he did his darnedest to get all the credit. Calculus was a shiny new thing, so it made sense to explain it in his book.
Anarchists never rule
More info on the Newton / Leibniz battle:
Newton vs Leibniz
Anarchists never rule
There's an obvious reason why he did this: none of his readers could be expected to know calculus. It had, after all, just been invented, or was still in the process of being invented. If he wanted people to understand the concepts, he either had to teach them the math or figure out a way of presenting it convincingly without the reader needing to know calculus. Neither one is an easy prospect. I haven't read Principia myself, but I remember a physics prof mentioning that in some cases he deliberately avoided using calculus because he thought that his demonstrations would be more likely to convince people if they didn't use all that new fangled math, and it wound up being vastly more complicated as a result.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
You can read it here.