José Celestino Mutis and Newtonianism in New Granada, 1762 1808

This book presents the process of circulation and adoption of Newtonianism in the Viceroyalty of New Granada (modern-day Colombia) in the eighteenth century by examining José Celestino Mutis's lectures at the Colegio del Rosario between the 1760s and 1770s. Mostly famous for his botanical activities as director of the botanical expedition, Mutis lectured the first course of mathematics ever created in New Granada on his arrival in Bogota in 1762, in which he included several lectures on physics that encompassed multiple aspects of his interpretation of Newton's experimental physics.

Depicts how Newtonianism informed the development of the Spanish colonies in the New World Presents unprecedented textual evidence to characterise the circulation of science in the Americas Examines the earliest translations into Spanish of Newton's, Descartes's, Wolff's, and Gravesande's works

Auteur

Sebastián Molina-Betancur is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Università degli Studi di Milano (Italy) where he studies the circulation of science in the Spanish colonies between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries. He has been lecturer of history of science and history of philosophy at the Universidad de Antioquia (Colombia).

Contenu

Chapter I. The administrative history of a chair.- Chapter II. Newtonianism in Mutis's lectures on mathematics.- Chapter III. Newton's physics in New Granada: Mutis's lectures and mathematisation of nature.- Chapter IV. The circulation of Newtonianism in New Granada after Mutis's lectures.