This Just Read: The Clockwork Universe: Issac Newton, the Royal Society & the Birth of the Modern World

I just finished Edward Dolnick's "The Clockwork Universe: Issac Newton, the Royal Society & the Birth of the Modern World." I got it for Christmas. In the past year I've re-read Neal Stephenson's "Baroque Cycle" and James Gleick's "Issac Newton," with cover the same period/subject (in the genre's of epic fiction and biography, respectively). I read it in actual book form. It's nice for restaurants and comfy chairs, but less nice for reading in bed (where my tablet literally shines).

The Clockwork Universe is a good treatment of the English Enlightenment covering, essentially, the second half of the seventeenth century. It focuses much of its attention on the work of Newton, but does a good job of putting that work in the context of his time and his peers. It's by no means a biography (g.v. Gleick), but is an excellent supplement.

The main "plot" element is Newton's discovery and publication of the universal laws of gravitation. To do this, Dolnick takes us on a tour of celestial theories, from the ancient Greeks, to Copernicus, Kepler, Brahe, and Galileo. It also delves deeply into the invention of the calculus, and the dispute between Newton and Leibniz (q.v. Stephenson). Dolnick's careful explanation of what the calculus is doing is one of the best treatments I've encountered. It's not a math textbook by any means, but he gives a casual reader a good grasp of what's going on.

It was an enjoyable book to read at lunchtime. I't recommend it to anyone interested in the history of science, mathematics, Enlightenment thinking, etc...