Publication of Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica

Timeline

1. 1686Gresham College · LondonHalley read Newton's manuscript of the first book of the Principia before the Royal Society. The Society resolved to print and publish it, but due to tight finances Halley personally bore the printing costs and supervised the proofs. Robert Hooke immediately raised objections over priority for the inverse-square law of gravitation, prompting Newton to revise parts of the text and at one point consider withdrawing the third book.
2. 1686–1687London printing workshop · LondonNewton continued at Cambridge writing the second book on fluid resistance and the third book on the system of the world, while Halley in London collated the Latin text against the manuscript and arranged for Joseph Streater to print it. The entire work was presented in geometric propositions, avoiding the still-controversial notation of fluxions so that Continental scholars could read it.
3. 1687London · LondonHalley reported to the Royal Society that the Principia had been printed. The first edition of some two to three hundred copies was dedicated to the Royal Society and quickly spread to Continental academies of science. The work brought terrestrial mechanics and celestial motions into a single mathematical system, becoming the common starting point for mathematical physics for the next century and a half.