Books like Newton's Principia — picked by fans

Ever since I was a small boy obsessed with the stars, I’d read about how Newton deciphered the secrets of the universe. Yet he himself remained a cipher. So when I was given Christianson’s book as a present, I was enchanted. I place this book in the top three or four best all-time biographies I’ve ever read (and I’ve read plenty!).

Others—I recycle; this one—never. Christianson presents a vivid picture of the life, work, and relationships of this most brilliant of men. Some science biographies suffer from awkward writing, but for me, Christianson has seamlessly woven the complexities of Newton’s life and science together in rich, colorful prose. And what an interesting life it was! You will find other Newton biographies; I treasure this one.

Twenty years ago, while driving to my favorite lunch-hour swimming place in Hawaii, I heard the renowned physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar being interviewed on the radio about the release of his new book on Newton’s Principia.

Chandrasekhar’s goal was to present Newton’s thought and ‘mathematical craftsmanship’ in a way accessible to the modern reader. Long an admirer of Chandra and Newton, I was sold. This labor of love is the book to read if you want to know all about how Newton did it.

But in fairness, it is not really for ‘the common reader:’ its math level varies from simple to challenging. Yet there is so much there, even if you don’t get it all. The illustrations are big and clear; his technical and historical asides are fascinating and stimulating.

This is a delightful read about a subject I’ve been attracted to for many years: gravity. The odd fact is, while we can use Newton’s laws to determine all sorts of things that gravity can do—with sufficient precision even to guide spaceships to orbits around other planets—we still don’t really know what gravity is.

The book is an extended essay about the history of our ideas about gravity’s myths, maths, and mysteries. I especially enjoyed how Panek raises and lightly touches upon so many aspects of the question, juggling it with finesse from every angle. He covers the ground long before, up to, and past Newton’s breakthrough. I particularly liked his discussion of the problem of comets in Newton’s theory. Panek concludes with recent gravity wave detections.

It was good luck when I stumbled across this marvelous Newton resource at a used bookstore in Edinburgh, Scotland. I open it frequently; arranged alphabetically, the answer always seems to be there. There are so many aspects to Newton’s life, writings, and science that a book like this—this book—is indispensable for anyone who spends time with the man or his ideas.

Running from “Aberration” to “Young, Thomas,” it encompasses everything in between: Newton’s family tree (under “Family”); writings on mechanics (under “Mechanics”); chronology, data, contents, and summaries of each edition of the Principia (under “Principia”); and details of every one of his published works (under “Works”). Of great use to me, too, are biographic summaries of his contemporaries (like Flamsteed, Halley, and Hooke), all concise and excellent.

Science is a structure constructed stone by stone. Building on the work of all who came before. None have laid a more perfect foundation than Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. I am amazed by the leaps of faith, journeys into the unknown, and foundational advances each of these scientific giants took through simple thought-experiments.

We all know about the apple which fell from the tree and Newton’s laws of motion and mechanics. But few have ventured into the intricacies of Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica to read Newton’s own thoughts and appreciate his genius. Written in Latin and dense in theory, it’s no wonder few have dared try. But this book allows even the layperson to understand and appreciate the greatness of Newton’s work. It's a journey to understand Newton-the man, the historical context of his time, and how the Principia continues to impact our present-day world.… show more.

Ismael is one of our leading philosophers of physics, and of fundamental questions more generally.

This book is a comprehensive exploration of the intersection of physics and free will, with the surprising moral signaled by her title. Properly understood, contemporary physics, even if it is deterministic, does not threaten free will. On the contrary, it helps to explain how free beings like us are possible in the first place.

The Three Body Problem is a real-life unsolved math problem concerning the motion of three bodies (think a star and two orbiting planets), all acting on each other by the pull of gravity. Given their positions and movements at times, what will happen in the future? Will they eventually fly away or fall into the star?  

The Three Body Problem is also a mathematical mystery by Catherine Shaw (a pen name – shhh), set in Cambridge in Victorian times, which contains three actual dead bodies, all of the mathematicians working on the eponymous problem. Another mathematician, who knew all three well, is accused of the murders. Luckily for him, his fiancée, though not a mathematician herself, is as much a truth-seeker as any, and her actions unravel the mystery while the reader gets a close look into the world of maths and the people who do it. Our amateur detective… show more.

When I was asked to review this book, my first instinct was to decline. Newton (1642-1727) was a towering genius but a dull fellow, with no interest in other human beings. He often published anonymously for fear that, he explained: "Public esteem, were I able to acquire and maintain it … would perhaps increase my acquaintance, the thing which I chiefly study to decline." How can a biographer make such a person interesting?

The author dodges very nimbly around this problem, giving us an account, not so much of the man as of his reputation and influence. Perhaps this means that her book is not a true biography, but it is done with such skill and wit, I include it anyway.

I have had my copy since about 1972, when I was a penurious post-grad, and it lacks an ISBN, but it is based on a famous phrase that may or may not have been written by Sir Isaac Newton: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”, and it is an uproarious and undisciplined history of that phrase. Merton calls it a Shandean postscript, because there are parallels with the style of Tristram Shandy.

I am afraid (or so two of my more literate editors have assured me), Merton infected my own style to an extent, but you can just tell that he enjoyed telling a story, almost as though it came from Falstaff himself. Any would-be understander of science needs to read it, but if you cite it, don’t make the mistake of Charlesworth et al., who, in Life Among the Scientists,… show more.

Don’t let the length (over 900 pages) of this biography put you off. Instead, immerse yourself in the slow and powerful current of author Richard Westfall’s superbly written and richly detailed portrait of the skills, achievements, and obsessions of the singular genius that was Isaac Newton. Westfall explains in a masterful way Newton’s mathematics, his physics, his heretical theology, his fixation with alchemy, his activities running the Royal Mint, and his disputes with other scientists. These features, and Westfall’s evocative description of the intellectual and social milieu of Newton’s 17th-century world, make Never at Rest a compelling read.