THE ISAAC NEWTON COLLECTION

Abstract

In September 1895, the first book relating to Isaac Newton's work was acquired to satisfy a young man's inquiry as to why stars and planets held their places in the heavens, and also the question of why they moved. This little volume, entitled Steele's Fourteen Weeks Study of Astronomy, was the original stimulus to a most fascinating and wonderful study in celestial mechanics, the mathematical aspects of the universe, and its reality and evolution. It was here that the answers to the above questions on planetary motion were found. It was more particularly the laws of Isaac Newton and those of Johann Kepler, and the analytic treatment of these laws, that were the basis of all my subsequent studies. Through the years, whenever possible, books and pamphlets, manuscripts, and letters were acquired, all bearing upon celestial mechanics and especially Newton's life and writings. Today the Isaac Newton Collection at Stanford University contains all the writings of Newton, including the first edition of the Principia, which serves as the keystone of the Collection, as well as many editions of the works and commentaries thereon. This introduction presents some of the scientists who, as the creators of the physical sciences, may be called the giants upon whose shoulders Newton stood. The works of Newton's contem-