Action and Reaction Proceedings of a Symposium to Commemorate the Tercentenary of Newton's Principia

B.J.T. Dobbs uses her research on alchemy to develop an integrated view of Newton's work, while P.E. Spargo explores the alchemistic theme in his paper on chemical experiments. Studies of comets are linked to the seventeenth-century political context in a novel way by Simon Schaffer. Anita Guerrini proves that Newton's concepts of the structure of matter and ether inspired speculations about the nature of insanity, while Norriss Hetherington shows that Newton's formulation of natural laws served as an inspirational model for Adam Smith's formulation of economic laws. Arthur Donovan argues that Lavoisier's formulation of chemistry was not carried out in imitation of Newtonian natural philosophy but initiated a new tradition of "positive science." Frank Wilczek looks back from the perspective of contemporary physics and sees the seeds of modern ideas about transformations in Newton's admittedly speculative Queries. The volume concludes with a short overview by Dudley Shapere.