MacLaurin's Physical Dissertations [Paperback]

This book presents important works by the Scottish mathematician Colin MacLaurin (1698-1746), translated in English for the first time. It includes three of the mathematicians less known and often hard to obtain works. A general introduction puts the works in context and gives an outline of MacLaurin's career. Each translation is also accompanied by an introduction and analyzed both in modern terms and from a historical point of view.

General Introduction.- General Introduction.- MacLaurin on Gravity.- to Part I.- Translation of MacLaurins Dissertation.- MacLaurin on Collisions.- to Part II.- Translation of MacLaurins Essay.- MacLaurin on the Tides.- to Part III.- Translation of MacLaurins Essay.

From the reviews:

Anyone seriously interested in Colin Maclaurin (1698-1746) or in eighteenth-century mathematical physics will welcome this book. & the assiduous reader will be rewarded in many ways, both by working through Tweddles introductions, notes, and appendices, and by reading Maclaurins own words in Tweddles clear and accurate translations. I find the book refreshing & we have the result of years of profound study and deliberation, careful textual analysis, and sound understanding and explanation of the relevant mathematics and physics. (Judith V. Grabiner, MathDL, January, 2007)

Ian Tweddle is a proven Springer author, having already contributed two books to the Sources and Studies series: Simon on Porisms (306-5, published 2000), and Methodus Differentialis (723-0, published 2003). Of these three books, this one will have the widest appeal.

The Scottish mathematician Colin MacLaurin (1698-1746) is best known for developing and extending Newtons work in calculus, geometry and gravitation; his 2-volume work Treatise of Fluxions (1742) was the first systematic exposition of Newtons methods. It is well known that MacLaurin was awarded prizes by the Royal Academy of ScienceslCQ