Tan calf binding with black and red title plates, gilt banding and title on the spine. Contains several fold out sheets.

• F.B.A. provides an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feeling and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available.

Newly rebound and revamped by the famous bookbinder Brian Cole this introduction to Sir Isaac’s work has an additional small 18th century volume bound into it.  An easy and pleasant introduction to Sir Isaac Newton’s philosophy : containing the first principles of mechanics, trigonometry, optics, and astronomy / By a Fellow of the Royal society [James Ferguson?] With an Essay on the advancement of learning, in various modes of recreation.

1772 Isaac Newton Philosophy John Ryland SCIENCE Mechanics Optics Astronomy

John Ryland’s Introduction to Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophy is a rare, 18th-century survey of Newtonian sciences with a heavy emphasis on mechanics, trigonometry, optics, and astronomy. Ryland includes numerous folding engravings throughout, each of which depict experiments, tools, scientific examples, or discoveries. This book is considerably rare and is an excellent example of Newton’s theories and studies on 18th-century science.

An easy and pleasant introduction to Sir Isaac Newton’s philosophy London: Printed for Edward and Charles Dilly, 1772. Details: Collation: Complete with all pages.

           James Ferguson circa 1760

Note the influence on John Ryland by James Ferguson (25 April 1710 – 17 November 1776) who was a Scottish astronomer. Ferguson is known as the inventor and improver of astronomical and other scientific apparatus, as a striking instance of self education and as an itinerant lecturer.

Although not as well known nowadays, Ferguson was widely influential in his own time. Thomas Paine mentioned him in his publication “The Age of Reason” and William Herschel studied astronomy from his books. His international reputation was such that he was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1770. The German experimental physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg admired Ferguson: “Everything was done by experiments – he had not even chalk and sponge.”

Sir Isaac Newton FRS (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author who was described in his time as a natural philosopher. He was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment that followed. His pioneering book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), first published in 1687, consolidated many previous results and established classical mechanics. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics, and shares credit with German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for developing infinitesimal calculus, though notably he developed calculus well before Leibniz. He is considered one of the greatest and most influential scientists in history.

In the Principia, Newton formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that formed the dominant scientific viewpoint for centuries until it was superseded by the theory of relativity. Newton used his mathematical description of gravity to derive Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, account for tides, the trajectories of comets, the precession of the equinoxes and other phenomena, eradicating doubt about the Solar System’s heliocentricity. He demonstrated that the motion of objects on Earth and celestial bodies could be accounted for by the same principles. Newton’s inference that the Earth is an oblate spheroid was later confirmed by the geodetic measurements of Maupertuis, La Condamine, and others, convincing most European scientists of the superiority of Newtonian mechanics over earlier systems.

Newton built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a sophisticated theory of colour based on the observation that a prism separates white light into the colours of the visible spectrum. His work on light was collected in his highly influential book Opticks, published in 1704. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling, made the first theoretical calculation of the speed of sound, and introduced the notion of a Newtonian fluid. In addition to his work on calculus, as a mathematician Newton contributed to the study of power series, generalised the binomial theorem to non-integer exponents, developed a method for approximating the roots of a function, and classified most of the cubic plane curves.

Newton was a fellow of Trinity College and the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. He was a devout but unorthodox Christian who privately rejected the doctrine of the Trinity. He refused to take holy orders in the Church of England, unlike most members of the Cambridge faculty of the day. Beyond his work on the mathematical sciences, Newton dedicated much of his time to the study of alchemy and biblical chronology, but most of his work in those areas remained unpublished until long after his death. Politically and personally tied to the Whig party, Newton served two brief terms as Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge, in 1689–1690 and 1701–1702. He was knighted by Queen Anne in 1705 and spent the last three decades of his life in London, serving as Warden (1696–1699) and Master (1699–1727) of the Royal Mint, as well as president of the Royal Society (1703–1727).