Newton’s papers are among the world’s most important collections in the western scientific tradition and are one of the Library’s most treasured collections.
- Katrina Dean
Held at Cambridge University Library, Newton’s scientific and mathematical papers represent one of the most important archives of scientific and intellectual work on universal phenomena. They document the development of his thought on gravity, calculus and optics, and reveal ideas worked out through painstaking experiments, calculations, correspondence and revisions.
In combination with alchemical papers at King’s College, Cambridge and his notebooks and correspondence at Trinity College, Cambridge and the Fitzwilliam Museum, this represents the largest and most important collection of Newton’s papers worldwide.
Katrina Dean, Curator of Scientific Collections at Cambridge University Library said: “Newton’s papers are among the world’s most important collections in the western scientific tradition and are one of the Library’s most treasured collections. They were the first items to be digitised and added to the Cambridge Digital Library in 2011 and featured in our 600th anniversary exhibition Lines of Thought last year. In 2017, their addition to the UNESCO International Memory of the World Register recognises their unquestionable international importance.”
The Memory of the World Project is an international initiative to safeguard the documentary heritage of humanity against collective amnesia, neglect, the ravages of time and climatic conditions, and wilful and deliberate destruction. It calls for the preservation of valuable archival, library and private collections all over the world, as well as the reconstitution of dispersed or displaced documentary heritage, and the increased accessibility to and dissemination of these items.
Image: Image from Newton’s own annotated copy of Principia Mathematica
Credit: Cambridge University Library
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge