This edition of Isaac Newton’s Principia is the first edition that enables the reader to see at a glance the stages of evolution of the work from the completion of the manuscript draft of the first edition in 1685 to the publication of the third edition, authorized by Newton, in 1726.

A photographic reprint of this final version, the present edition exhibits on the same page the variant readings from the seven other texts. This design allows the reader to see all the changes that Newton introduced and to determine exactly how the last and definitive edition, published a few months before Newton’s death, grew from earlier versions.

A series of appendices provides additional material on the development of the Principia; the contributions of Roger Cotes and of Henry Pemberton; drafts of Newton’s preface to the third edition; a bibliography of the Principia, describing in detail the three substantive editions and all the known subsequent editions; an index of names mentioned in the third edition; and a complete table of contents of the third edition.

Often referred to as the Newton of France, Pierre Simon Laplace has been called the greatest scientist of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He affirmed the stability of the solar system and offered a powerful hypothesis about its origins. A skillful mathematician and popular philosopher, Laplace also did pioneering work on probability theory, in devising a method of inverse probabilities associated with his classic formulation of physical determinism in the universe. With Lavoisier and several younger disciples, he also made decisive advances in chemistry and mathematical physics.

Roger Hahn, who has devoted years to researching Laplace's life, has compiled a rich archive of his scientific correspondence. In this compact biography, also based in part on unpublished private papers, Hahn follows Laplace's journey from would-be priest in the provinces to Parisian academician, popularizer of science during the French Revolution, religious skeptic, and supporter of Napoleon. By the end of his life, Laplace had become a well-rewarded dean of French science.

In this first full-length biography, Hahn illuminates the man in his historical setting. Elegantly written, Pierre Simon Laplace reflects a lifetime of thinking and research by a distinguished historian of science on the fortunes of a singularly important figure in the annals of Enlightenment science.