About the cover: Isaac Newton, Fatio de Duillier, and Alchemy
2011; American Mathematical Society; Volume: 48; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1090/s0273-0979-2011-01331-3
ISSN1088-9485
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Astronomy and Related Studies
ResumoTo call Nicolas Fatio de Duillier colorful is an understatement.One of Newton's biographers, A. Rupert Hall, described him as unstable, a word that is probably more common in the 21st century than it was in the 17th.Others have called him a genius, a hypochondriac, an adventurer, a flatterer, and a sycophant.A member of a minor aristocratic family in Switzerland, Fatio (sometimes written Facio or Faccio) was born on February 16, 1664, in Basel, two years before Newton's annus mirabilis during which he did major work in gravitation, mechanics, optics, and the calculus.Fatio exhibited precocious scientific talent by the age of 17 when he was communicating his theories and findings to scientists in Paris and other centers of learning.Having the means to travel, he set off to meet Christiaan Huygens in Amsterdam, G. W. Leibniz in Hanover, and the Marquis de l'Hôpital in Paris, all of whom were impressed.To add to his adventures, he learned of a plot by agents of Louis XIV to abduct William of Orange, the Dutch prince who would later become King William III of England, Ireland, and Scotland.Fatio informed the English of the plot and thereby paved the way for his being welcomed warmly to London in 1687, the year Newton published his masterpiece, the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica.By then Fatio's scientific reputation had preceded him, so the following year, at the age of 24, he was made a member of the Royal Society.It was a remarkable achievement for one so young.(Newton had to wait for this honor until he was 30.)An ardent admirer of the work of Newton, Fatio soon became one of the group of young mathematicians and scholars who gathered around the "master", but he quickly rose to a favored rank among them, leaving William Whiston, Samuel Clarke, John Locke, and others behind.In 1666 Newton, at the comparable age of 24, had enjoyed his annus mirabilis.So in some ways their stories were similar, separated in age by just 22 years.One authority on Newton, Frank Manuel, wrote that "Newton and Fatio had much in common: mathematics,
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