the lawsof motion-philsci（自己motion-philsci）.docVIP

The Mechanical Philosophy 1660 – 1675 MechPhil2white, 2 August 2007 E B Davies Abstract We study the state of mechanics and astronomy between 1660 and 1675 in order to understand the extent of the commitment to the mechanical philosophy of Kepler prior to the writing of Principia. Introduction This article studies the state of mechanics and astronomy between 1660 and 1675. This period was not dominated by any one person, but saw many momentous developments. Among these were the foundation of the Royal Society in 1660 and the Academie des Sciences in 1666. The first issue of the Journal des S?avans appeared early in 1665, a few months before the start of the Philosophical Transactions (of the Royal Society). These heralded a key change in scientific philosophy – that even small developments in scientific understanding should be documented quickly rather than being treated as personal property, in some cases for decades. Henry Oldenburg was the first editor of the Philosophical Transactions, as well as being the founding Secretary of the Royal Society. His correspondence is of great value because many scientific communications were made via him. This correspondence was the origin of the modern practice of scientific refereeing. Birch provides a detailed record of the meetings of the Royal Society from its inception, in strict temporal order. The period covered by this article excludes the controversies involving Hooke and Newton in the period leading up to the publication of Principia in 1687. We pay particular attention to some selected publications of Wallis because less has been written about him than about many of the other major contributors to our subject in the seventeenth century. We should, however, mention an ongoing project to record all of his correspondence and a brief general biography by Scott. Wallis was one of the outstanding mathematicians of the seventeenth century, but his reputation suffered from the fact that his contributions