Last week (recall) I returned a stolen Maupertuis to The Institution of Civil Engineers (hereafter: ICE) Library in London. During my visit, while I was admiring a beautiful copy of the third Edition of Newton's Principia, the librarian, Debra Francis, called my attention to a four page manuscript wedged in the first few pages. The manuscript was in English and seemed to be written by somebody familiar with the mathematics of the Principia. It looked 18th century to me. So, while still in the library I sent pictures of it to Niccolo Guicciardini and then, separately in a joint email, to Scott Mandelbrote, George Smith, and Chris Smeenk.
As I noted, the copy of the Principia is part of the Telford collection that originates the library and was donated by a MR. Young in 1840 (as a plaque inside the book reveals). You may recall that in my original post, I remarked "I immediately tried to remember Thomas Young's dates." Of course, I quickly googled these (1773 – 1829), and left it aside.
Most of my own original thoughts were about the author and contents of the manuscript, especially because I could tell Niccolo was excited to receive it. More about that soon.
After a visit to the vault (which did not contain the paperwork we were looking for), I left the library with a promise from Debra Francis to track down the provenance of 'Mr. Young's Principia.' Today she reported back to me. Well, hold on to your seats, because it's a banger:
This is from the Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Volume 1, p. 11 (see here).
Thus, it seems pretty clear that this is referring to the Thomas Young, who indeed had a brother (and nephew) called Robert Young who seems to have survived him (and seems to have died around 1850). So, the plot thickens. And in my next installment we'll return to the manuscript, its author, its contents, and, of course, how it ended up in Thomas Young's personal copy of the Principia. For Niccolo had a hunch about that, that's turning out to be very fruitful...to be continued.
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