An imagined gathering
1687 · Cambridge, England
Newton presents the Principia to Locke and Leibniz, and the talk turns to the calculus and the rights of kings.
Principia Mathematica has just appeared, and Newton, who dislikes company and dislikes controversy more, has agreed to a dinner at Trinity for two men who can understand it. Locke has come up from London, and Leibniz, visiting England, has come to test the rumours about the book and its author.
Newton explains how the same force governs the fall of an apple and the orbit of the moon, and Leibniz presses him on the mathematics behind it — a question that will soon become a war over priority. Locke, less interested in mechanics, steers the talk toward government and toleration, and Newton, who has thought hard about both, surprises him with the strength of his views. A haunch of venison, a pasty, and a custard tart carry them into the night.
Host: Isaac Newton
John Locke — Philosopher and physician, reading the Principia with difficulty and admiration.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz — Visiting England and alert to any claim about the calculus.
Main
a period dish
First course
a period dish
Drink
a period dish
Isaac Newton
Newton's claim that the same force pulling an apple down holds the Moon in its orbit and binds the planets to the Sun.
John Locke
Life, liberty, and property as claims that precede government and that government exists to protect.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
The mathematics of change and accumulation, invented independently by Newton and Leibniz and the subject of a bitter priority dispute.
This gathering is an editorial recreation grounded in the biographies of those present; it did not necessarily take place as described.