Radical principia (Q1205985)

By 1694 Newton had devised some quite radical plans for revising his 1687 Principia. D. T. Whiteside writes: ``Newton came in the early 1690's to conceive a grand scheme of revision of the published Principia in which not only its particular verbal and mathematical errors were to be corrected\dots''. As we know, not one of Newton's grand schemes ever appeared in print. The author's plan for the present work is to carry out Newton's agenda in a radical revision of the early portions of the Principia. He writes: ``In the Editor's Note, you will read the story of how I came to edit a recently discovered manuscript of Newton's. Do not believe a word of it. It is all pretense, but it is pretense with purpose,\dots''.