An Analysis of a Course of Lectures on the Principles of Natural Philosophy, read in the University of Cambridge

George Atwood

London : Printed for T. Cadell, in the Strand, M. DCC. LXXXIV, 1784

[Newtonian Physics - The History of Science] Bound in fine modern brown cloth. Red leather spine label. Five raised bands. Collated: vi, 265, [3] pages.  In good condition internally, with some offsetting, spotting. George Atwood was a brilliant English mathematician, renowned chess player, and frequent contributor to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Academy.  This, his first work, helped revive the teaching of natural philosophy at Cambridge.  As a fellow and tutor at the College, Atwood was tasked with introducing students to Newtonian physics.  To aid his instruction, and dismiss persistent erroneous ideas on inertia and the living force of matter, Atwood later invented a machine to demonstrate Newton's Second Law of Motion.  His lectures were popular, and so he published them in 1776.  In his lectures Atwood "demonstrated elementary mechanics and hydrostatics with pulleys, pendulums, and air-pumps, as well as electricity, magnetism, and optics, including Leonhard Euler's principles of achromatic lenses. He also taught astronomy, mentioning recent surveys of the earth's density by the mathematician Charles Hutton and the astronomer royal Nevil Maskelyne, plus Maskelyne's favoured lunar method for longitude."  - DNB.  This edition is the revised and substantially enlarged version of a Atwood's course outline.  DSB I, 326-27.