Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica

Timeline

1. 1684–1686Trinity College, Cambridge · CambridgeIn 1684 Halley visited Newton on the questions of inverse-square force and elliptical orbits; Newton then wrote De motu corporum in gyrum and expanded it into the three-book Principia. Book I was submitted to the Society in spring 1686; Hooke claimed priority for the inverse-square idea, and Newton at one point threatened to withdraw Book III, but after Halley's mediation the whole work proceeded to press.
2. 1686–1687London · LondonPepys signed the licence to print on 5 July 1686. The Society could not then pay printing costs, and Halley financed publication himself. The Latin first edition appeared in London in 1687, setting the three laws of motion and universal gravitation as derivable mathematical propositions, subjecting heaven and earth to the same mechanics.
3. 1713–1726Cambridge and London · EnglandThe second edition of 1713 was corrected by Roger Cotes at Cambridge, adding the General Scholium and answering Descartes' vortex theory. The third edition of 1726, assisted by Henry Pemberton, became the standard text of the 18th century. The revisions strengthened experimental and observational constraints, making the work the standard mechanics text of universities and academies.
4. 1726European scientific community · Europe18th-century Continental analytical mechanics recast the Principia's geometric arguments in the language of equations, but the laws of motion and the inverse-square law of gravity remained the common starting point. The work became one of the most frequently reprinted and annotated originals of modern science, and after relativity appeared it was still taught as the classical limit.