Third edition. Quarto (9 1/8 x 7 1/2 inches). Contemporary quarter calf over marbled paper covered boards. Morocco title label to spine. Engraved frontispiece portrait of Newton and numerous illustrations and diagrams in the text and engraved illustration of cometry orbit on p 506. Title printed in red and black. Spine somewhat worn and repaired tears to paper on boards. Scribbled out contemporary signature to half title. Light damp stain to gutter of preliminary pages, but internally generally fresh with occasional marginalia. Overall, a very good, complete copy.

One of 1250 copies of "the greatest work in the history of science" (PMM). The third edition was the last to be published in Newton's lifetime and contains a new authorial preface and a large number of alterations and additions, the most controversial being the omitting of Leibnitz's name from the scholium on fluxions, thus ignoring Leibnitz's own independent discovery of calculus.
The work had long lasting implications in the fields mathematical sciences and mechanics, particularly in the establishing of Newton's three laws of motion and the development and application of calculus for practical purposes.
"Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler had certainly shown the way; but where they described the phenomena they observed, Newton explained the underlying universal laws. The Principia provided the great synthesis of the cosmos, proving finally its physical unity. Newton showed that the important and dramatic aspects of nature that were subject to the universal law of gravitation could be explained, in mathematical terms, within a single physical theory. The same laws of gravitation and motion rule everywhere; for the first time a single mathematical law could explain the motion of objects on earth as well as the phenomena of the heavens. The whole cosmos is composed of interconnecting parts influencing each other according to these laws. It was this grand conception that produced a general revolution in human thought, equalled perhaps only by that following Darwin's Origin of Species" (PMM)

PMM 161 (describing the first edition)

Stock ID: 30839