History of Physical Astronomy Author:Robert Grant Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: place conventionalities of ordinary minds; and, guided by the eaglo eye of genius, explored the secret springs which animate a whole system of worlds. We cannot ... more »convey to the general reader a more adequate idea of the merits of the incomparable work just mentioned, than by citing the judgment pronounced upon it by the most illustrious of Newton's followers. Laplace, after enumerating the various astronomical discoveries first announced in the Principia, concludes in the following terms:—" The imperfection of the Infinitesimal Calculus, when first discovered, did not allow Newton to resolve completely the difficult problems which the system of the world offers, and he was often compelled to give mere hints, which are always uncertain until they are confirmed by a rigorous analysis. Notwithstanding these unavoidable defects, the number and generality of his discoveries relative to this system, and many of the most interesting points of the Physico-mathematical sciences, the multitude of original and profound views, which have been the germ of the most brilliant theories of the geometers of the last century, all of which were presented with much elegance, will assure to the Principia a preeminence above all the other productions of the human intellect." CHAPTER II. Newton's Intellectual Character considered in connexion with his Scientific Researches.— His Inductive Ascent to the Principle of Gravitation.—Motion of a Body in an Orbit of Variable Curvature.— Attraction of a Spherical Mass of Particles.—Develope- ment of the Theory of Gravitation.—General Effects of Perturbation.—Inequalities of the Moon computed—Aid aflbrded by the Infinitesimal Calculus.—Figure of the Earth.—Attraction of Spheroids.—Precession of the Equinoxes—General accuracy of Newton's Results.—Anecdotes il...« less