Before turning to consider the fundamental insights that gave rise to
The Principia, I want to touch on the question of how we approach a treatise on Mathematical Physics that was written over 200 years ago. This is a matter that concerns the reader as well as the translator. Some translators seek to transport the reader to the time and place of the writer, and some to translate the writer into the time and place of the translator.
It makes no sense to ask for a translation of
The Principia as Newton might have written it had he lived today. But there are problems with trying to transport the reader back to the time of Newton. We are all changed by technological advance. We have amazingly accurate watches, but one of the ways in which Newton timed the fall of balloons, dropped from a height in St. Paul’s cathedral, was to use a pendulum. We expect to be able to measure lengths to a ridiculous degree of accuracy against a universally defined standard. We are used to travelling