Amazon.com: Customer reviews: The Principia : Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy

Top positive review

Important Read

Reviewed in the United States on February 12, 2014

This is one of those books where you can get all the information contained therein from other sources. It is a difficult read in that it was written in the language of the 16th century. However, it is stunning. Follow the math which begins with geometry and evolves into calculus. Not as a learning progression but as a necessity. At times, Newton seems almost apologetic when establishing his scenarios and problems. Almost as if he knows you can't possibly understand his intent! This book, along with The Principia, ranks as one of the very first applications of the scientific method. With all due respect to Copernicus, Galileo and many others; Newton was THE intellectual giant of the Renaissance. We are all forever in his debt.

52 people found this helpful

Top critical review

Critical reviews›

David Morton

A great view of math history, a little hard to read and comprehend for non-experts

Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2016

This book is a facsimile version, which appeals to my sense of history; although it has a drawback: in places bits of letters have gone missing and it can impede reading ease and comprehension. Kind of like both sides of a coin I guess, so I present this as a fact, not a criticism.

The real challenge is that it isn't helping me learn maths, I see no evidence of it being like a tutorial or textbook. It reads much more like a reference for people who have a very good understanding of the maths in it already. I'm very interested in understanding what it says, and it's going to take additional help.

All up, I think it's a treasure in the historical sense as a time capsule of science, it's an economical price and looks as though it's made to last as a book.

3 people found this helpful

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From the United States

John Arbuckle

Important Read

Reviewed in the United States on February 12, 2014

Verified Purchase

52 people found this helpful

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StephOoO

For the general idea

Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2014

Verified Purchase

I wanted to get an idea of why Newton discovered/created the calculus framework. I was more interested in the problems he was trying to solve than the explicit descriptions of the math problems. The dated English is hard to decipher at times but its worth reading through at least once. Its a bit dry and a bit slow but it does something most present math books don't do; this book explains why.

23 people found this helpful

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