Edmond Halley Visits Newton
1684
The young English astronomer Edmond Halley traveled to Cambridge to ask Isaac Newton what path a planet would follow under an inverse-square force. An ellipse, Newton replied instantly; he had calculated it years earlier but lost the paper. Halley persuaded him to write it up, and Principia Mathematica was born.
In context
Also in 1684 (2 other events on record)
- Versailles Receives the Siamese Embassy · Southeast Asia · Politics
- Holy League Formed · Europe · Politics
Before and after in Europe
Before and after in Science
Era
Enlightenment (1651–1800), one of 696 events from that era on Saeculum.
Sources