SOURCE: "The Principia: Composition and Content," in Newton and the Culture of Newtonianism, Humanities Press, 1995, pp. 38-46.

Below, Dobbs and Jacob briefly outline the origin and content of Newton's Principia.

Edmond Halley (1656-1752), Fellow of the Royal Society and later Astronomer-Royal, was a central behind-the-scenes figure in stimulating the writing of Newton's most important work and in seeing it through the press (editing it, correcting proof sheets, drawing geometric figures, and even funding the publication himself). Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica (The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), published in London in 1687 and now usually designated simply by its abbreviated Latin title as Principia, was the capstone of the Scientific Revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and is often said to be the greatest work of science ever published.

The occasion for Newton to write the book arose in the following manner. Halley, Robert Hooke, and Christopher Wren (1632-...