Toplis Rev John (1 results)

FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH. With 1 large folding engraved plate. Modern boards, spine label; interior clean. Overall an excellent copy from the library of Dr. Sydney Ross with his small book label on the paste-down. First edition in English, the first effort at an English translation, which presumably got no further. The complete English translation was done by the Nathaniel Bowditch and published Boston, 1829-1839. In Laplace's monumental Mecanique celeste, first published between 1799 and 1827, all the laws of planetary motion are deduced from the concept of universal gravity. He argued that the universe was really a great self-regulating machine and that the whole solar system could continue on its existing plan for an immense period of time. This was a great step forward from the Newtonian uncertainties in this area. He also offered a brilliant explanation of the secular inequalities of the mean motion of the moon about the earth, a problem which Euler and Lagrange had failed to solve. Specifically, the first book treats the general laws of balance and motion and the universal law of gravity as well as the movement of the centers of gravity of celestial bodies. Laplace (1749-1827), considered the Isaac Newton of France, was one of the most influential scientists in the fields of mathematics, celestial mechanics, and physics. Not much is known about the translator John Toplis. He lived in Nottingham and was likely acquainted with his neighbor the mathematician George Green.