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wood prints book wood prints principia wood prints great comet of 1680 wood prints comet wood prints orbit wood prints publication wood prints calculating wood prints history wood prints astronomy wood prints mathematics wood prints illustration wood prints diagram wood prints monochrome wood prints black-and-white wood prints 17th century wood prints

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Newton's comet calculations. Diagram and text of page 488 from 'Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica' (1686) by the English physicist Isaac Newton (1643-1727). This work laid the foundations of classical and celestial mechanics. This diagram shows that five of the six parameters of a comet's orbit (then thought to be parabolic) can be derived from three observations at approximately one-month intervals. This was the first time cometary orbits had been calculated, and Newton applied this method to the Great Comet of 1680. The text is in Latin, and mentions the comet, the Earth and the Sun, and the other labelled parts of the diagram.

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