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50 Greatest Books

Principia Mathematica

DAN FALK

Globe and Mail Update

Latest comment posted at 2:14 PM EST 25/08/08

A prophecy delivered from a mountaintop, not a textbook. ...Read the full article

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  1. D Mores from GTA, Canada writes: In the seventh grade, someone with access to the university library signed out a copy of Principia Mathematica for me.

    I couldn't figure out a thing in it, but the symbols held an allure like some grand mystery of nature to be solved. It motivated me to learn calculus and quantum mechanics three years later.

    It is amazing that ideas like this arose over three hundred years ago, or even that the theory of relativity came about a hundred years ago! When compared to the state of knowledge and thinking of the time, these are scientific revolutions that find no modern day comparisons of which I am aware!

    Amazing.
  2. Buddy . from Away, Canada writes: .... "on the sholders of giants"

    A universe that can produce an Isac Newton is a wondrous place.
  3. Jim Cohoon from Chilliwack, Canada writes: Looked at in historical perspective, Newton's PRINCIPIA seemed to mark a cultural as well as a scientific 'leap forward'. It wasn't so very long before Newton's time that Galileo was being officially persecuted and silenced for his scientific contributions. There has largely been steady scientific (and thus democratic) progress since Newton to the present, based in a general respect for 'science', with some occasional regressive back-sliding. However, it does appear that in some parts of the West 'science' (or scientific thinking) is currently facing a rising opposition, due largely to a 'far-right' political/religious agenda to replace reason with belief (or ideology) as the primary guide to 'truth'. With scientific logic and fact sidelined, it apparently is hoped that political/religious 'authority' may again take its rightful place at the head of the patriarchal table, as it did prior to Newton.
  4. J Kay from Canada writes: Buddy. from away: Indeed, Newton was even good at the backhanded 'complement', as the 'shoulders of giants' comment is believed to be a dig at Robert Hooke, who was a contemporary of Newton's and had been vocal critic of some of Newton's ideas regarding optics and was shorter in stature than Newton.

    The first person noted to have made the quote however was Bernard of Chartres.
  5. Buddy . from Away, Canada writes: Thanks J Kay

    I love this type of info ...
  6. Peter Kells from Bytown, Canada writes: There are those who divide the history of the world into before Newton and after Newton - so profound were the changes that his science unleashed. The entire industrial revolution is unthinkable without Newtonian physics. Or to paraphrase Winston Churchill - never before in the history of the human race has so much been owed by so many to so few.....
  7. Shadow of the Bear from Canada writes: Jim Cohoon from Chilliwack: You have hit the nail on the head. Newton would be appalled at the current tide of thinking.
  8. Joe Smith from Canada writes: The funny thing is that in his later years, Newton turned to alchemy. Chemistry became "scientific" a lot later than physics did.
  9. El Christador from Vancouver, Canada writes: Nature and Nature's Laws lay hid in Night / God said, Let Newton be! and all was Light. -- Alexander Pope.
  10. Tom Gray from Canada writes: Shadow of teh Bear wrote:

    ===========
    Jim Cohoon from Chilliwack: You have hit the nail on the head. Newton would be appalled at the current tide of thinking
    ==========

    Both of you should learn something about Newton before making statements about what he would apalled about.
  11. Stephen Dedalus from Canada writes: "Both of you should learn something about Newton before making statements about what he would apalled about."

    I'm getting out of here before I get caught in the middle of a mathematics battle royale.
  12. R M from Canada writes: I think the moral of the story is:

    More funding for education; less funding for sports :-)

    or

    Long Live Learning!
  13. Jim Q from Halifax, Canada writes: The evil Newtonian empire shall fall!

    Leibniz lives!

    Long live the true founder of calculus!

    ; )
  14. Dan P from Calgary, Canada writes: No question that Newton was a genius, that his work led to countless developments in technology, changed the course of the wrorld, etc. But this list of '50 greatest books' is supposed to be a list of timeless works of fiction and non-fiction, yes? A book that is essentially unreadable hardly seems to qualify.
  15. gender bender from espanola, Canada writes: So why did'nt the so called real "prophets" produce something even remotely as deep as Newton did? Why did god spend his time telling people what to wear and eat etc instead of telling them something useful and might I add difficult? Newton and Einstein were far more in touch with the universe than somebody coming down from a mountain with some broad proclamations based only on their word that it came from god. If you measure a theory by it's usefulness and difficulty then Newton stands head and shoulders above the grand pronouncements of those whose messages are useless and simple.
  16. Al B from Canada writes: gender bender, Newton produced an astonishing work. But it wasn't 'deep' in the sense that it moved the soul. It's a fantastic work of intellect, but it is dry and unfulfilling in the spiritual sphere. Knowing calculus does not get me any closer to the great question of why I am here. Great art and great literature speak to me (and most people) in ways that science however 'useful' will never be able to. And I say it as a math major.
  17. gender bender from espanola, Canada writes: Al B Do you really believe that some people talk to angels?That is my point.As a math major you will be able to appreciate the relevance of Godel's incompleteness theorem and it's impact on prophecy and the untenable idea of a final prophet and therefore a first or any "prophet".Godel's theorem although naturally not even hinted at in the principia when you understand it comes as a type of revelation.Understanding nature through mathematics has a spiritual dimension at least as great as that which can be achieved by reading religious book or so Einstein said and lived his life.I'll take his word for it
  18. Stephen Morris from writes: Jim Cohoon and Shadow of the Bear: Shows what you know. Newton was deeply religious and saw God's design in the beauty of mathematics and physics of the cosmos. As did Einstein.
  19. Jim Cohoon from Chilliwack, Canada writes: Stephen -- there is probably verifiable truth in your points. Many great 'scientific' minds from Galileo to Einstein were essentially 'deistic'. My point was more that Newton's 'scientific' contributions could not have been made or even attempted if he had accepted a paradigm of 'God' or 'religion' based in human or patriarchal 'authority' regarding cosmic 'truth'. I am not certain but suspect that Newton may have largely agreed with the great deist Thomas Paine, who wrote in "The Age of Reason" (a book that could only have been born indirectly of Newton's works): "Instead then of studying theology, as is now done, out of the Bible and testament ... the authenticity of which is disproved, it is necessary that we refer to the 'bible of the creation'. The principles we discover there are eternal and of divine origin; they are the foundation of all the science that exists in the world, and must be the foundation of theology. We can know God only through his works."
  20. Shadow of the Bear from Canada writes: Finding God in the wonders of nature and a mathematical universe, and in grasping science's central revelation, our oneness with the cosmos, makes perfect sense to me. To my understanding, Newton would probably agree, as would Einstein and Carl Sagan. Science and faith can go hand-in-hand. In fact, they must.

    What does not make sense to me is a "far-right political/religious agenda to replace reason with belief (or ideology) as the primary guide to 'truth'", as described by Mr. Cohoon. Science often must take a back seat to religion and/or politics. I do not agree with this.

    Some of the biggest controversies in the current U.S. presidential election campaign have been centred on where, when and how the candidates worship God. In a country that prides itself in the separation of church and state, the candidates must demonstate that their decisions will be God-centred. Where does science fit into this religious equation?

    Prime Minister Harper has quietly muzzled the scientists at Environment Canada. I find this kind of censorship unnecessary, outrageous for a democracy, and downright alarming. Science is not political.

    I think Newton would be appalled.
  21. Shadow of the Bear from Canada writes: You can muzzle scientists. But the truth will bite back.
  22. Spurgeon Gillis from Canada writes: Should a book that "neither he nor anybody else understands," nor the reviewer has even read completely, qualify?

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