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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."
I have that in paperback. They can have mine.
The latest Slashdot meme.
Google news has some more links.
I'm looking for a HEPA media filter for my TV. I'm alergic to reality shows.
Check on ebay, I'm sure it'll be on there soon...
Welcome to the land of the free...pay toll ahead...no photography...please open your bag...
That that thief will have a hard time finding a buyer. After all, it's hard explain where you got a one of kind book like this.
Cogito ergo sum in Slashdot.
Here is the cached article
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
First the Principia... NOW THE WEBPAGE.
Have these men no shame?
Didn't someone at least make a photocopy of it?!
Where the hell am I supposed to find obscure geometrical proofs of things otherwised proved by calculus now!?
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*urp*
*cough*
*choke*
They stole... Principia ?!
(screams to the next room) BRING ME MY GUN!
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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.
They have stolen the web page as well!
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
Newtons essay is actually written on special material that in fact houses the CORE FUNDAMENTIAL ELEMENTS tha stabalize the laws of physics in our universe. If the theif has it in his mind to incenerate said document, be prepared for chaos. Apples not falling from trees, velocity and acceleration NOT functioning in automobiles (even Italian sportscars), Microsoft going open source, alphas of Doom III leaking. You get my drift. Just be careful.
You don't seem to realize the gravity of the situation.
Sigs are bad for your health.
Newton died years ago. Why not put something in the museum that's a bit more contemporary?
Maybe some Harlequin Romances or Stephen King?
Trolling is a art,
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Try Reuters
C8H10N4O2 | Developer > Code
How the hell do you sell that on the black market? Is there some reclusive physicist out there collecting rare works (Einstein's drink napkin from Le Lapin Agile!) that will pay top dollar for this? If so, how does he/she show it off to their friends and family (assuming that they aren't that reclusive)? How do you explain that you just happen to have this sitting around in the family room?
I fear the crime will stay unsolved unless it is acted upon by an outside force.
Once and for all, taking a physical item from its owner is not "theft". Yes this is the common usage these days, but saying something over and over doesn't make it true.
If you want to be accurate, use the word "take". As in, someone "took" the Principia Mathematica.
If you want to give it a positive connotation, use the term "shared" or "loan". As in, I just "shared" my copy of the Principia with a stranger, or I just involuntarily "loaned" my copy to a man in a ski mask with a gun.
Let the RIAA and other thugs use their propaganda words. I'll stick with morally neutral terminology.
Remember, matter just wants to be free. This doesn't mean zero cost, but it means once you pick up a physical object, you can put it in your pocket and head for the hills, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.
Besides, I believe the Supreme Court has already ruled that people have the right to "space-shift" other people's possessions.
I hate to break it to you, but there are rumors that Newton actually created calculus too. Luckily, calculus hasn't been stolen yet, but it's under close watch now.
More at eleven ...
This is a rare first edition, not a hand written manuscript. Although these selfish thieves have deprived Russian students of a rare and valuable text, it is not unique. A quick google search revealed that among other universities, Georgia Tech owns not only a first edition identical to the one being stolen (although the russian copy may have been in better condition, the article doesn't say) they also have a rare second and a rare third edition(http://gtalumni.org/StayInformed/magazine/ sum99/newton.html). Some other results also credited the University of Cambridge for having the most complete collection of Newton's papers. Rare first editions are mainly for bragging rights anyway. I don't see why this should be an international incident as the story suggests. Very few people outside of Russia would have ever seen it anyway, as there are other copies available in mroe convenient places anyway.
I saw the headline "Newton's Principia stolen" and immediately thought that someone stole a technology called "Principia" from the NewtonOS.
Damn, I'm a geek.
SIGFEH
Surely Leibniz should be considered an initial suspect.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
...I'm definitely going to take advantage of F !=ma. I'm going to give my car a good shove tomorrow morning and ride it all the way to work.
I just hope that we don't spin out of orbit while F != G(m1m2)/d2. I guess, though, that if we start to spin out of orbit, somebody on the far side of the planet can just give it a shove and we'll be back in place.
Unfortunately, I've already noticed my CPU getting hotter. And I stood on this really tall guy's shoulders but I couldn't see very far...
"95% of all Slashdot
I'm surprised this theft hasn't attracted more attention in the mainstream media
At least in America this is probably due to the fact that when someone says "Newton" the first thing we think of is "Fig".
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Still, sure, you can learn all about the application of the math without knowing the theoretical underpinnings all the way back to geometric first principles, but it's much more intellectually rewarding to trace them. And it's necessary in order to say that an equation is "proved" mathematically. Theories do get non-Euclidean sometimes, but you can't really appreciate that unless you know the Euclidean things themselves work.
I think it's particularly telling but not at all suprising that this hasn't gotten the attention that a theft of other items such as art would get. The media and liberal arts people who would make a fuss don't understand or care about science, so they would give a lot more attention to the scribblings of a second rate artist than to a scientific work. Scientists value the information, not the paper, and know that can't be taken, and the media gives them little attention anyway unless a giant rock is heading towards Earth. It's a shame to have the artifact vanish, but I'm not at all surprised that more attention is given when a thief breaks in and steals from Madonna.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
This is actually a bit misleading. Leibniz did not die without honor... he was a nobleman's nobleman who worked for kings and princes and the like.
He didn't get credit for the Calculus as readily, but it's not like he was Baruch Spinoza or William Blake (or David Hume for that matter). The man was a philosopher to royalty. The calculus was only one of his great philosophical achievements and that was noted in his time.
Incidentally, Leibniz's argument which Voltaire ridicules is kinda neat. God is all knowing, all powerful, and all loving. Because he is all knowing, he knows all the possible worlds he could have made. Because he's all poweful, he could make any worlds he knows. And because he's all-loving, he would only make the best of all the possible worlds for us of those that he knows (all of them) and can make (all of them).
So this is the best of all possible worlds.
I remember watching C-SPAN years ago when some bill or other about federal funding for scientific research was being debated. Some typical Congresscritter was on, the worst kind of clueless politician, way in over his head. He supported the bill, which put him on the right side in my view, but one could easily see that he was trying to profile himself as being "friendly to science", although he in fact understood very little of it.
...", with a bit of rhetorical flourish on the man's name.
To illustrate his views, he introduced a quotation of Newton's by saying something like, "As the Great Scientist Isaac Newton once said,
I was depressed. One would hope that anyone could speak of Isaac Newton without any further introduction, but clearly, this Congresscreature felt compelled to tell us that he was the "the Great Scientist". Otherwise, he ran the risk that his audience wouldn't know who in the world he was talking about.
Why isn't there more interest in this story, you ask? Well, because quite a few people haven't the slightest clue who Newton is or what the Principia is all about. Not unless you mention "the Great Scientist".
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
This is one of the theological pitfalls of monotheism. If you have an omnipotent god, you get all sorts of fun little paradoxes.
i.e. can God make a pie so big that even He couldn't eat it?
Reagrdless of the answer, you're left with an non-omnipotent god, which goes against the omnipotent monotheistic ideal.
Many philosophers have spent a lot of tiem rationalizing this out. Otehres have spent a lot of time using this to prove that God doesn't exist.
Polytheisms don't fall victim to this, since rarely do they ever have or need an all-powerful god-figure. Gods/goddesses with specific domains don't need to be all-powerful to get their jobs done. Of course, polytheism has other theological problems.
Theological philsophy is interesting to study. Brain-hurting sometimes, but fun.
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"I used to listen to Null Device before they sold out."