Isaac Newton founded classical physics in 1687 with his main work “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica”. But so far it was unclear how many copies of this work were in circulation at the time and how widely it was read. Now, in a ten-year search, historians have tracked down 387 first editions of the “Principia”, around 200 of which were previously unknown. Their research also shows that it was by no means only mathematicians who read this work.
Whether the principle of inertia, the law of conservation of momentum or the principle of reaction: Isaac Newton’s laws form the basis of classical mechanics to this day. However, his research also laid the foundation for understanding gravity and the orbits of celestial bodies. The English scholar published his conclusions in 1687 in his three-volume main work “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica”, or “Principia” for short.
How big was the first edition?
It is known from contemporary documents that Newton was encouraged to do this work by the English astronomer Edmund Halley. It was Halley who helped fund the print. At auctions today, first editions of the Principia are traded for hundreds of thousands to a few million euros, depending on their condition. “Today we know a lot about what happened around the drafting and printing of the Principia,” explain Mordechai Feingold from the California Institute of Technology and Andrej Svorenčík from the University of Mannheim. “But our knowledge of the size of the circulation, its distribution and reception at that time is only very fragmentary.”
There had been attempts to track down first editions of the “Principia” before, most recently in 1953: “When Henry Macomber published his list of owners of first editions in 1953, he thought the edition was very small – he estimated it to be no more than 250 copies ”, report Feingold and Svorenčík. Macomber had tracked 189 first editions and a few more in the dark. But even then, historians suspected that significantly more copies of this work must have been printed. That is why the two historians have now undertaken another global search for copies of the first edition of the “Principia”. To do this, they evaluated historical documents such as auction catalogs, purchase receipts and letters. “We felt like Sherlock Holmes at times,” says Feingold.
More widespread than previously thought
After ten years of work, Feingold and Svorenčík have now published their first inventory. Accordingly, they managed to track down a total of 387 copies of the Principia in 27 countries – 200 of which were previously unknown. According to her, at least 200 more copies could still be preserved undocumented in public and private collections. According to the scientists, this result suggests that far more copies of the Principia were printed in 1887 than previously assumed. The researchers were even able to find some stolen specimens. They discovered a book at a bookseller in Italy that had been stolen from a German library half a century earlier.
Your evaluation of contemporary documents also showed that the Principia was by no means only read by a few mathematicians. For a long time Newton’s main work was considered to be far too complex and difficult to understand to be of interest to a broader readership. But as it now shows, the Principia was almost a “best seller” at the time. The English astronomer John Flamsteed commented when Newton’s follow-up work “Optics” was published in 1704: “This work is not so much talk of the town as the Principia.” In addition, the Principia was extensively discussed in reviews and commented on in many letters from Newton’s contemporaries as the researchers report.
The two historians also found indications for eager readers on closer examination of one of the copies: “When you look at the books, you often find small notes in the margin that tell you how it was read,” explains Svorenčík. Many of these notes were from different readers. “This indicates that the books were passed on,” explains Feingold. “It can be assumed that each copy was read several times by different people.” This indicates that the Principia and its contents were widespread and popular. “The first edition of the Principia reached a much wider readership than traditionally assumed – both in England and abroad,” the scholars state.
Source: California Institute of Technology, Article: Annals of Science, doi: 10.1080 / 00033790.2020.1808700