Euclid's Window

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Paul Theerman and Adele F. Seeff

This volume grows out of a symposium commemorating the three-hundredth anniversary of the publication of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, held at the University of Maryland and the Smithsonian Institution in 1987. Widely acknowledged to be the most important scientific work ever published, the 1687 Principia contains the first complete statement of principles that were to govern physical science into the nineteenth century. Presented here is a sampling of the best current scholarship on the Principia, its context, and its influence. The essays reflect the depth of inquiry and diversity of research that have characterized the last generation of work on Newton. The volume opens with an essay by Richard S. Westfall that justifies claims that Newton was the "culmination of the scientific revolution." The I. Bernard Cohen essay that follows illustrates the difference between "mathematical principles" and "natural philosophy." Two complementary papers give new insights into the Newtonian foundations of celestial mechanics: William Harper analyzes Newton's argument for universal gravitation from the perspective of a philosopher of science; Michael S. Mahoney discusses the mathematical aspects of Newton's use of force law to determine planetary orbits. B.J.T. Dobbs uses her research on alchemy to develop an integrated view of Newton's work, while P.E. Spargo explores the alchemistic theme in his paper on chemical experiments. Studies of comets are linked to the seventeenth-century political context in a novel way by Simon Schaffer. Anita Guerrini proves that Newton's concepts of the structure of matter and ether inspired speculations about the nature of insanity, while Norriss Hetherington shows that Newton's formulation of natural laws served as an inspirational model for Adam Smith's formulation of economic laws. Arthur Donovan argues that Lavoisier's formulation of chemistry was not carried out in imitation of Newtonian natural philosophy but initiated a new tradition of "positive science." Frank Wilczek looks back from the perspective of contemporary physics and sees the seeds of modern ideas about transformations in Newton's admittedly speculative Queries. The volume concludes with a short overview by Dudley Shapere.

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Jay Barbree

Some fifty years ago as a cub reporter, Barbree caught space fever the night that Sputnik passed over Albany, Georgia. On a double date where the couples actually did some star gazing, Barbree recognized that exploring space would become one of the most important stories of the century. Convinced that one day astronauts would walk on the moon, Barbree moved to the then sleepy ocean—side community of Cocoa Beach, right outside Cape Canaveral, and began reporting on rockets that soared, exploded, and fizzled. In the decades to come he witnessed a parade of history as space pioneers, hucksters, groupies and politicians participated in the greatest show of technology the world had ever seen. Besides many untold and amusing anecdotes — quite a few involving astronaut pranks, fast cars, swimming pools, and strong drinks — Barbree reveals the horror visited on the Cape when Apollo 1 burned, when the Challenger exploded and when Columbia broke into pieces.A warts and all account, this book nevertheless carries a compassionate and positive message. The men and women who conquered space were colorful and sometimes larger than life. They partied, got angry, made mistakes and committed their share of sins. But they were also genuine heroes with great commitment and love of country. With humor, insight and unmatched experience, Barbree brings them and the ever—changing world of the space program to vivid life.

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Max Brooks

“The end was near.” —Voices from the Zombie War The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years. Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War. Most of all, the book captures with haunting immediacy the human dimension of this epochal event. Facing the often raw and vivid nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the reader, but the effort is invaluable because, as Mr. Brooks says in his introduction, “By excluding the human factor, aren’t we risking the kind of personal detachment from history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn’t the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as ‘the living dead’?”

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Stephen Paul Stewart

"Military working dogs are silently winning the war against the world's deadliest insurgents; day after day saving soldiers' lives in the most dangerous country on the planet. Many have been rescue animals, neglected or mistreated by their owners before being given a new lease of life on the front line. From the featureless plains of Helmand and Kandahar to military bases in Germany, Army dog teams work day and night to keep us safe but, until recently, their courage and sacrifice has not been fully understood or appreciated. In A Soldier's Best Friend, award-winning journalist Stephen Paul Stewart employs in-depth interviews together with years of research and frontline reportage to tell their gripping and emotional stories for the first time, an unprecedented account of the dogs' close relationships with their handlers, their extraordinary heroism and action-packed lives."--Jacket page ii.