Newton’s Atomism and its Fate

Abstract

Newton’s Principia contained a science of mechanics that was able to withstand experimental tests in a demanding way. Newton also articulated and defended an atomic theory of the ultimate structure of matter. His atoms bore the marks of his science insofar as inertia was attributed to them. In other respects they were particles of universal matter with a given shape and size very much like those of Boyle. Newton speculated that there were short-range forces at the atomic level analogous to the force of gravity acting between gross bodies at sensible distances identified in his mechanics. As was the case with the mechanical philosophers who came before him, Newton’s atomistic matter theory was accommodated to rather than confirmed by observation and experiment. His atomism did not and could not fruitfully guide his experimenting. Eighteenth-century attempts to develop Newtonian atomism similarly did not bear fruit.