Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

"Representing a decade's work from a distinguished physicist, this is the first comprehensive analysis of Newton's Principia without recourse to secondary sources. Professor Chandrasekhar analyses some 150 propositions which form a direct chain leading to Newton's formulation of his universal law of gravitation. In each case, Newton's proofs are arranged in a linear sequence of equations and arguments, avoiding the need to unravel the necessarily convoluted style of Newton's connected prose. In almost every case, a modern version of the proofs is given to bring into sharp focus the beauty, clarity, and breathtaking economy of Newton's methods." "Professor Chandrasekhar's work is an attempt by a distinguished practising scientist to read and comprehend the enormous intellectual achievement of the Principia. This work will stimulate great interest and debate among the scientific community, illuminating the brilliance of Newton's work under the gaze of Chandrasekhar's rare perception."--book jacket.

Classical investigations on the ellipsoidal figures of equilibrium of liquid masses are here enlarged by Chandrasekhar into a complete theory. The author develops and completes the basic ideas put forth in three fundamental papers by Dirichlet, Dedekind, and Riemann over a century ago, which have been all but ignored since that time. The various problems are solved by a method and a technique that are essentially elementary, and a number of common misconceptions and errors are corrected. After a historical introduction, the author goes on to discuss virial equations of the various orders and to describe his new method; potentials of homogeneous and heterogeneous ellipsoids (including theorems on a class of heterogeneous ellipsoids which enable the treatment of the subject without explicit use of ellipsoidal harmonics); Dirichlet's problem and Dedekind's theorem; Maclaurin spheroids; Jacobi and Dedekind ellipsoid; Riemann ellipsoids; Roche ellipsoids (Including Darwin ellipsoids).