Scientists worry a lot that their work will be ignored, which causes them to immitate the style and form of previous impactful works, which explains Newton’s choice of Latin and his choice of proofs in the geometric tradition to present results that he came up with using more calculational and more analytic methods. When I read Principia I felt the author was trying to explain clearly and as simply as possible, but sticking to established expository forms to avoid the work’s being rejected due to too much novelty.
I agree it is possible Newton was trying his best to explain his work, and you probably know better than I do since you’ve read it. However the claim is consistent with my understanding of his personality and is supported second-hand by William Derham’s claim that
These Controversies with Leibnitz, Hooke, & Linus, & others about Colours, made Sir Isaac very uneasy; who abhorred all Contests, accounting Peace a substantial Good. And for this reason, namely to avoid being baited by little smatterers in Mathematicks, he told me, he designedly made his Principia abstruse; but yet so as to be understood by able Mathematicians, who imagined, by comprehending his Demonstrations, would concurr with him in his Theory.
Note that this may be reasonable. If you make a scientific or mathematical discovery, it may be right to confine it in the language specialized to that field so that the relevant scientific or mathematical communities can discuss it with minimal outside noise, however Leibnitz and Hooke were able mathematicians, so if his goal was to write the theory so that even them or their followers couldn’t understand, then that is a different story.
As for the Latin question, regardless of why Newton wrote the Principia in latin, that is definitely a social factor rather than a “we understood calculus more as a society and could therefore explain it better than he could” factor.
Scientists worry a lot that their work will be ignored, which causes them to immitate the style and form of previous impactful works, which explains Newton’s choice of Latin and his choice of proofs in the geometric tradition to present results that he came up with using more calculational and more analytic methods. When I read Principia I felt the author was trying to explain clearly and as simply as possible, but sticking to established expository forms to avoid the work’s being rejected due to too much novelty.
I agree it is possible Newton was trying his best to explain his work, and you probably know better than I do since you’ve read it. However the claim is consistent with my understanding of his personality and is supported second-hand by William Derham’s claim that
Note that this may be reasonable. If you make a scientific or mathematical discovery, it may be right to confine it in the language specialized to that field so that the relevant scientific or mathematical communities can discuss it with minimal outside noise, however Leibnitz and Hooke were able mathematicians, so if his goal was to write the theory so that even them or their followers couldn’t understand, then that is a different story.
As for the Latin question, regardless of why Newton wrote the Principia in latin, that is definitely a social factor rather than a “we understood calculus more as a society and could therefore explain it better than he could” factor.