Travels Through Time #4 – Simon Schaffer, 1684
In this episode Simon Schaffer, Professor of History of Science at the University of Cambridge, visits three events pivotal to the genesis of Isaac Newton's paradigm-shattering book the Principia Mathematica.
On a frozen January day in 1684, three friends – Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke and Edmond Halley – met at an London coffee house to confront one of the great questions in knowledge: planetary motion. Their conversation, goaded by a wager put down by Wren and some healthy professional rivalry, led to Isaac Newton’s chambers at Trinity College in Cambridge and to the momentous theories of the Principia Mathematica. In this fourth episode of Travels Through Time, Simon Schaffer brings to life one of the most thrilling episodes in the entire history of science.
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