Text in this article is based on the
1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. Unfortunately the text in the online version of that encyclopaedia was incomplete, and so there are a number of topics missing from these four subpages. I hope to obtain a copy of this material from elsewhere. The text was edited in accordance with the guidelines in
Wikipedia:1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, with an additional comment from me occasionally.
The OCR software messed up virtually everything in the article which was in italics. I had to reconstruct many Latin titles using resources elsewhere on the web. I can’t guarantee that I did this perfectly in every case.
I have edited direct quotations from Newton, to produce an article more accessible to modern readers. Specifically, I have:
- Modernised usage of capital letters
- Replaced archaic words in a minimal way (e.g. reflecteth -> reflects)
- Modernised spelling (e.g. divers -> diverse)
Punctation may have changed slightly, mostly due to OCR errors. Note that this kind of editing was also done by the 1911 authors, so the quotes in this document come to the reader “third hand”, so to speak.
Tim Starling
All Wikipedia text
is available under the
terms of the GNU Free Documentation License