Leibniz on motion in a resisting medium

Abstract

In his anonymous review of the Commercium epistolicum1 , Newton remarks that the three articles of Leibniz entitled, "De lineis opticis, et alia", "Schediasma de resist entia medii & motu projectorum gravium in medio resistente" and "Tentamen de motuum coelestium causis", published in 1689 in the Acta eruditorum2, contain the principal propositions of the Principia and that these are claimed by Leibniz as if he had found them himself before reading the Principia. When the Principia was published in July 1687, Newton gave to Fatio de DuiLLiER a copy to be sent to Leibniz in Hanover3. In October of that year, however, Leibniz left Hanover on a long diplomatic mission, so that, as he remarks in a letter to Huygens4, he saw the Principia for the first time in Rome5, where he arrived on 14 April 1689, two months after his articles had appeared in the Acta eruditorum. Writing to Otto Mencke6, the editor of the journal, Leibniz explained the circumstances of the composition of the three articles that he was sending for publication. Having been out of touch with new publications owing to his travels, he was delighted to receive from a friend some issues of the Acta eruditorum, in one of which he came across the review of Newton's Principia1. Three topics especially caught his attention and these