Newton and the ‘electrical attraction unexcited’

References

• The Newtonian J. T. Desaguliers uses the phrase, Electrical Attraction unexcited Physico-Mechanical Lectures London 1717 in his See later in text and foot-note 27.
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• Guerlac , H. 1963 . Francis Hauksbee : expérimentateur au profit de Newton . Arch. Intern. Hist. Sci. , 16 : 113 – 128 . ‘Newton's Optical Aether’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society, 1967, 22, 45–57.
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• Newton . Opticks , 340 – 340 . Unless otherwise stated, the edition used throughout is that ‘Reprinted from the Fourth Edition’, London, 1931.
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• Newton . Opticks , 340 – 340 .
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• Guerlac , H. 1967 . Newton's Optical Aether . Notes and Records of the Royal Society , 22 : 48 – 48 .
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• Newton . Opticks , 376 – 376 .
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• Newton . Opticks , 376 – 376 .
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• Newton . Opticks , 375 – 375 .
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• Newton . Opticks , 376 – 376 .
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• For a detailed exposition on Gilbert's meaning of the electrical attraction of bodies through friction, see Heathcote N.H. de V. The Early Meaning of Electricity Ann. Sci. 1967 23 261 275
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• Hall , A.R. and Hall , M.B. 1962 . Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton 228 – 228 . Cambridge ‘De Aere et Aethere’.
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• Newton's letter to the Royal Society, dated 9 December 1675, was first published in Birch T. History of the Royal Society London 1756–57 It has been reprinted in facsimile in Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy, by I. B. Cohen (Ed.), Cambridge, 1958, pp. 178–235.
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• Cohen , I.B. 1958 . Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy 200 – 200 . Cambridge
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• Newton's letter to Boyle, dated 28 February 1678–79, remained unpublished until T. Birch's edited volume of The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle London 1744 It is reprinted in I. B. Cohen, op. cit. (foot-note 12), pp. 250–253.
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• Newton Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World 547 547 translated into English by Andrew Motte This edition, revised by F. Cajori, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1962, is the one used throughout and will be referred to as the Principia.
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• Newton . Opticks , 376 – 376 .
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• See Hall M.B. Hall A.R. Newton's Electric Spirit: Four Oddities Isis 1959 50 473 476 and Hall and Hall, op. cit. (foot-note 11), p. 208.
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• Hall and Hall . 1959 . Newton's Electric Spirit: Four Oddities . Isis , 50 : 348 – 364 . ‘Scholium Generale’.
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• Koyré , A. and Cohen , I.B. 1960 . Newton's “Electric and Elastic Spirit” . Isis , 51 : 337 – 337 .
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• The University Library Cambridge MS. 3965 (12), fol. 357–358. ‘Quemadmodum Systema Solis Planetarum et Cometarum viribus gravitatis agitatur et partes ejus in motibus suis persevera[n]t, sic etiam minora corporum systemata viribus aliis agitari videntur et eorum particulae inter se diversimode moveri, et maxime vi electrica. Nam particulae corporum plurimorum vi electrica praeditae videntur et in se mutuo ad parvas distantias agere etiam absque frictione, et quae maxime electrica sunt, spiritum quendam per frictionem ad magnas distantias emittunt quo festucas et corpora levia nunc attrahunt nunc fugant nunc agitant diversimode.’ See also Hall and Hall, op. cit. (foot-note 10), pp. 350–351, 353–354.
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• Hall and Hall . 1959 . Newton's Electric Spirit: Four Oddities . Isis , 50 : 336 – 337 .
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• Newton . Opticks , 392 – 394 .
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• Newton . Opticks , 380 – 384 .
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• Hall and Hall . 1959 . Newton's Electric Spirit: Four Oddities . Isis , 50 : 336 – 337 .
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• Newton Optice; sive de Reflexionibus, Refractionibus, Inflexionibus & Coloribus Lucis Libri Tres London1706 23 329 329 Qu. Newton, Opticks, Qu. 31, p. 383: ‘When therefore Spirit of Salt precipitates Silver out of Aqua fortis, is it not done by attracting and mixing with the Aqua fortis, and not attracting, or perhaps repelling Silver?’
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• Desaguliers , J.T. 1717 . Electrical Attraction unexcited, in his Physico-Mechanical Lectures 2 – 2 . London
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• This compares with the Opticks, Qu. 31, where Newton writes concerning the cohesion of bodies as follows: ‘I had rather infer from their Cohesion, that their Particles attract one another by some Force, which in immediate Contact is exceeding strong, at small distances performs the chymical Operations above-mention'd, and reaches not far from the Particles with any sensible Effect’. But it is to be remembered that Newton later wrote: ‘Since Metals dissolved in Acids attract but a small quantity of the Acid, their attractive Force can reach but to a small distance from them. And as in Algebra, where affirmative Quantities vanish and cease, there negative ones begin; so in Mechanicks, where Attraction ceases, there a repulsive Virtue ought to succeed’. I. Newton Opticks 389 389 395
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• Desaguliers , J.T. 1717 . Electrical Attraction unexcited, in his Physico-Mechanical Lectures 2 – 3 . London
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• Between the years 1739–1742, Desaguliers had many papers on electricity published in the Philosophical Transactions. Although he made no original discoveries in his work, he is known to have furthered the work of Stephen Gray (1666?–1736) on electrical conductivity. A dissertation on electricity, contributed in 1742, won him the essay prize of the Académie des Sciences, Bordeaux. See Desaguliers J.T. A Dissertation concerning Electricity London 1742
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• See for example the first and subsequent editions of Desaguliers J.T. A Course of Experimental Philosophy London 1734–1735 2
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• Newton . Principia 547 – 547 . op. cit. (foot-note 14)
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• Newton . Opticks 347 – 354 . Queries 17–24
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• Cohen , I.B. 1958 . Isaac Newton's Papers and letters on Natural Philosophy 253 – 253 . Cambridge
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• Hall and Hall . 1962 . Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton 221 – 228 . Cambridge
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• Hall and Hall . 1962 . Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton 345 – 345 . Cambridge ‘Conclusio’
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• Newton . Opticks 376 – 376 .
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