Sir Isaac Newton's handwritten notes about momentous discovery of laws of motion and gravity now available online

More than 4,000 pages of scientist's works uploaded

Includes seminal Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica

An original manuscript containing Sir Isaac Newton's laws of motion is being made publicly available online, along with other historic works by the great scientist.

Cambridge University today published more than 4,000 pages of Newton's most important works on a new digital library website.

They include the scientist's own annotated copy of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica - and handwritten notes where some of his most famous theories first came to life.

Groundbreaking: This annotated sketch of work on optics by Sir Isaac Newton is among 4,000 pages of his historic documents which have been put online by Cambridge University

First published in July 1687, 'Principia' not only contains the laws of motion, but also Newton's law of universal gravitation. It is widely regarded as one of the most significant works in the history of science.

Over the next few months the university library will upload thousands more pages, making almost the whole of its Newton collection available for anyone to view and download.

Work on the Cambridge Digital Library (http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk) began in 2010 with the Newton collection being photographed during last summer.

Up to 200 pages were captured each day, although major conservation work had to be carried out on several manuscripts and notebooks before they could be digitised.

The programme also aims to upload works by other famous scientists from Darwin to Ernest Rutherford.



Prized: Sir Isaac Newton's first edition copy of his Principia, widely regarded as one of the most significant works in the history of science

The college notebook - used by Newton between 1664 and 1665 - contains notes from his reading on mathematics and geometry, showing particularly the influence of John Wallis and René Descartes

Later the Digital Library will incorporate other collections including the archive of the Board of Longitude and the papers of Charles Darwin.

University librarian Anne Jarvis said: 'Over the course of six centuries Cambridge University Library's collections have grown from a few dozen volumes into one of the world's great libraries, with an extraordinary accumulation of books, maps, manuscripts and journals.

The college notebook also shows evidence of Newton's own mathematical thinking including his study of infinite series and development of binomial theorem and the evolution of the differential calculus

'These cover every conceivable aspect of human endeavour, spanning most of the world's cultural traditions.'

Digitisation of the Newton papers was made possible by a £1.5million gift from the Polonsky Foundation, which supports education and the arts.

Grant Young, digitisation manager at the Cambridge University Library, said: 'We are launching our collections to the world with perhaps some of the most important papers and documents in the history of science.

Genius: But not all of Newton's peers would have wanted his work being made public as some critics felt they weren't even worth being printed

'In addition to his Principia and notebooks, we've included his 'Waste Book' - a very large notebook Newton inherited from his stepfather and filled with notes and calculations when he was forced to leave his studies in Cambridge during the Great Plague.

'With plenty of time and paper to hand, Newton was able to make significant breakthroughs, particularly in his understanding of calculus.

'Anyone, wherever they are, can see at the click of a mouse how Newton worked and how he went about developing his theories and experiments.

'Newton's copy of his Principia shows how methodically he worked through his text; marking alterations, crossing out and annotating his work in preparation for the second edition.



'Before today, anyone who wanted to see these things had to come to Cambridge. Now we're bringing Cambridge University Library to the world.'

Newton's English is recognisably different from our own, but his maths - building on work done by Rene Descartes - is exactly the same as what mathematicians use today. Here, he describes the curve of a mathematical function

Newton's 'Waste Book' contains much of the mathematician's work on calculus - which he began in 1664 while away from Cambridge due to the plague

Not all of Newton's peers would have approved of the work being shared so openly.