José Celestino Mutis and Newtonianism in New Granada, 1762–1808 (Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology)

This book presents the process of circulation and adoption of Newtonianism in the Viceroyalty of New Granada (modern-day Colombia) in the eighteenth century by examining José Celestino Mutis’s lectures at the Colegio del Rosario between the 1760s and 1770s. Mostly famous for his botanical activities as director of the botanical expedition, Mutis lectured the first course of mathematics ever created in New Granada on his arrival in Bogota in 1762, in which he included several lectures on physics that encompassed multiple aspects of his interpretation of Newton’s experimental physics. Acknowledgements Contents Abbreviations List of Figures 1 Introduction: Historical Accounts of Newtonianisms in Newtoniana 2 The Administrative History of a Chair Models and Context for a New Faculty Creating the Cátedra of Mathematics Vicissitudes in the 1770s Caballero y Góngora and the Definitive Re-establishment of the Cátedra The Fate of the Lecture After Its Re-establishment The Institutionalisation of Newtonianism in the Cátedra 3 Newtonianism in Mutis’s Lectures on Mathematics Unawareness and Myth in the Studies on Mutis’s Lectures The Utility of Mathematics: Mutis and the Relationship Between Mathematics and Physics The Scope of Mutis’s Lectures on Mathematics Mutis’s Lectures on Arithmetic: Wolff’s Influence and the Importance of Logarithms Descartes’s Géométrie in Mutis’s Lectures Calculus and Newton’s Method of Fluxions in Mutis’s Lectures 4 Newton’s Physics in New Granada: Mutis’s Lectures and Mathematisation of Nature Mutis’s Appropriation of Newton’s Mathematical Approach to Physics Newton’s Methodology in Mutis’s Lectures on Physics “The Investigation of Difficult Things”: The Method of Analysis and Synthesis and Its Application to Physics in Mutis’s Lectures Newton’s Rules for Philosophy in New Granada Laws of Nature and the Motion of Bodies in Conic Sections: Theoretical Aspects of Newton’s Physics in Mutis’s Lectures on Physics The Translation of Newton’s Principia in the Context of the Cátedra 5 The Circulation of Newtonianism in New Granada After Mutis’s Lectures Mutis’s Lectures: The Public and the Private Juan Eloy Valenzuela: The First Disciple of Mutis Newton in the College: Juan Eloy Valenzuela’s Lectures at the Colegio del Rosario Newtonianism Outside Santafé: José Félix de Restrepo’s Lecciones de física The Presence of Newton in Restrepo’s Lecciones 6 Conclusions Bibliography Index