Name: Newton's Principia for the common reader
ISBN: 9780198526759

Newton's Principia for the common reader

"Representing a decade's work from a distinguished physicist, this is the first comprehensive analysis of Newton's Principia without recourse to secondary sources. Professor Chandrasekhar analyses some 150 propositions which form a direct chain leading to Newton's formulation of his universal law of gravitation. In each case, Newton's proofs are arranged in a linear sequence of equations and arguments, avoiding the need to unravel the necessarily convoluted style of Newton's connected prose. In almost every case, a modern version of the proofs is given to bring into sharp focus the beauty, clarity, and breathtaking economy of Newton's methods." "Professor Chandrasekhar's work is an attempt by a distinguished practising scientist to read and comprehend the enormous intellectual achievement of the Principia. This work will stimulate great interest and debate among the scientific community, illuminating the brilliance of Newton's work under the gaze of Chandrasekhar's rare perception."--book jacket.

What Hacker News says

rramadassAug 2026

My point is that each of the material above (and i forgot to add the original Quantum Mechanics papers) were major watershed moments in science/mathematics and hence are not easy to read/understand. You need a good background in the subject matter(and mathematics) and/or somebody guiding you through them.

So what i do is try and find books which are written for the "educated common reader" by an expert who guides you through the original paper/book. It is still difficult to understand if you do not have the necessary background but at least you have a good starting point.

Some books in my collection;

1) Newton's Principia for the Common Reader by S.Chandrasekhar

2) Maxwell on the Electromagnetic Field: A Guided Study (Masterworks of Discovery) by Thomas Simpson

3) Einstein's Miraculous Year by John Stachel.

4) The Annotated Turing by Charles Petzold.

What we need is for a group of professors to get together and start writing a series on explaining the original papers to the "educated common reader" i.e. not too trivial nor too overwhelming. I think there is a huge market for this since it humanizes how science is done in real life which is fundamental for motivation.

thread

rramadassAug 2024

The actual quote is;

It appears to me that if one wants to make progress in mathematics one should study the masters and not the pupils.

— N.H. Abel (1802–1829), quoted from an unpublished source by O. Ore in Niels Henrik Abel, Mathematician Extraordinary, p. 138.

This is my absolute favourite quote too and i always keep this in mind. I think this is very relevant today since it seems every "Tom, Dick and Harry" wants to write a book most of which is mere parroting from other sources with no insight/simplification/intuition whatsoever. It is only the "Masters" who have a way of directly getting to the heart of the matter in the simplest manner possible. To this end i try and collect some of the original texts with detailed explanations so that i can learn from them. Some interesting ones are;

1) A Source Book in Mathematics by David Eugene Smith (Dover Publications) - https://archive.org/details/sourcebookinmath00smit

2) Newton's Principia for the Common Reader by Nobel-prize winning Physicist S.Chandrasekhar - https://archive.org/details/newtonsprincipia0000chan

3) Maxwell on the Electromagnetic Field: A Guided Study (Masterworks of Discovery series) by Thomas Simpson - https://archive.org/details/maxwellonelectro0000simp

4) The Annotated Turing by Charles Petzold - http://theannotatedturing.com/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Annotated_Turing

thread

rramadassFeb 2022

There is a quote attributed to Gauss (or Abel?) which goes: When asked about how he made his great discoveries, answered; "By Studying the Masters and not their Pupils".

Also Gauss: It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment (understanding). Words in Parenthesis mine.

I am of the firm belief that the original Discoverer/Inventor of an Idea/Concept/etc. is the best person to explain it since by definition they can lead you through the process of intuitively "getting" it. This is understanding from first principles. But since many of the original writings can be difficult to understand due to Complexity/Time Period you need a "Expert" who can explain the main ideas to the Student.

So what Books can HN folks recommend that fall into this category? A few examples from my collection;

1) A Source Book in Mathematics by David Eugene Smith.

2) Newton's Principia for the Common Reader by S. Chandrasekhar.

3) The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper On Computability And The Turing Machine by Charles Petzold.

4) Maxwell on the Electromagnetic Field: A Guided Study (Masterworks of Discovery) by Thomas K. Simpson.

Any and All suggestions welcome.

thread

eyeundersandNov 2020

I assume you might be looking for books of a similar (technical) flavour, of which I don't have too many to recommend, I'm afraid. However, here's some (across different genres) that are in my memory at this moment:

Finance/statistics : The Black Swan by Nicholas Nassim Taleb The Drunkards Walk by Leonard Mlodinow

Math/science history : Euclid's Window by Leonard Mlodinow A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

Physics: Newton's Principia for the Common Reader by S. Chandrasekhar

Lit: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Philosophy: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki Any of the upanishads but probably Kena Upanishad, Isha Upanishad, or Prashna Upanishad at first (selected for (relative) ease in readership by yours truly) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig (for a gentle introduction into Eastern thought)

I'm missing countless others but this is what I have right now. Thanks for the prompt and happy reading! :)

thread

rramadassJan 2020

People interested in studying the Principia might find the following useful:

Newton's Principia for the Common Reader by S. Chandrashekhar (nobel prize winning astrophysicist)

thread

rramadassAug 2026

Well said.

Thanks for calling out these sort of posers and charlatans on HN. We should not tolerate these people if we are to discuss/argue/motivate interesting/hard subjects productively.

I automatically discount anybody on HN (until i have looked at their profile/comment history/any personal bio websites etc.) who claim they have read/studied a) Euclid's Elements b) Newton's Principia c) Maxwell's Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism d) Einstein's 1905 Annus Mirabilis papers. e) Principia Mathematica by Russell/WhiteHead f) Godel's Theorem g) Bourbaki's mathematics books etc. etc. They might have browsed it out of curiosity but that is not the same as reading/studying it.

Actual conceptual mathematics/science is intrinsically hard even ignoring the archaic language/notations.

As a good example; the Nobel-prize winning physicist S.Chandrasekhar wrote Newton's Principia for the Common Reader where he explains a subset of the principia (only dealing with gravitation) using modern notation and language. He himself found it quite hard and thus the "common reader" in the title is somebody who has had a good course in calculus and has the motivation to put forth the effort in understanding it.

thread