Abstract
We should not be fooled by Newton’s triumph in the Age of Enlightenment. Despite what we might call Newton’s seeming apotheosis—as brought about by the public of the Italian Republic of Letters in the mid-eighteenth century—Newtonianism struck those mathematicians, astronomers and physicists who adhered to it as an open system: a field of research filled with unsolved questions. The historical accuracy of this claim may be appreciated by considering the case of Laura Bassi.
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Notes
- 1.
Marta Cavazza (2006).
- 2.
Beate Ceranski (1996).
- 3.
Paula Findlen (1993).
- 4.
Jean Paul de Gua de Malves (1740).
- 5.
Vincenzo Riccati, Girolamo Saladini (1765–67).
- 6.
Bruce Brackenridge (2003).
- 7.
Cesare S. Maffioli (1994).
- 8.
Isaac Newton (1711).
- 9.
Luigi Pepe (1988)
- 10.
Luigi Pepe (1984).
- 11.
Laura Bassi (1757).
- 12.
I. Bernard Cohen (1999).
- 13.
Eustachio Manfredi (1729).
- 14.
Laura Bassi (1757).
- 15.
George Smith (2001).
- 16.
John L. Greenberg (1995).
- 17.
Curtis Wilson (2001).
- 18.
Clifford Truesdell (1960).
- 19.
Martin Ekman (1993).
- 20.
Thomas Kuhn (1977).
- 21.
Marta Cavazza (2002).
- 22.
Paolo Casini (1993).
- 23.
Isaac Newton, an hypothesis explaining the properties of light discoursed in my severall papers, in H.W. Turnbull (1959).
- 24.
Maurizio Mamiani, Emanuela Trucco (1991).
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Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the Department of Philosophy “Piero Martinetti” of the University of Milan under the Project “Departments of Excellence 2018-2022” awarded by the Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR).
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Guicciardini, N. (2020). Newton’s Legacy: An Open Field of Research. In: Cifarelli, L., Simili, R. (eds) Laura Bassi–The World's First Woman Professor in Natural Philosophy. Springer Biographies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53962-7_2
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