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José Celestino Mutis and Newtonianism in New Granada, 1762–1808

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  • © 2023

Overview

Authors:
  1. Sebastián Molina-Betancur

    1. University of Milan, Milan, Italy

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  • 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

  • 259 Accesses

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Table of contents (6 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction: Historical Accounts of Newtonianisms in Newtoniana

    • Sebastián Molina-Betancur
    Pages 1-14

  3. The Administrative History of a Chair

    • Sebastián Molina-Betancur
    Pages 15-53

  4. Newtonianism in Mutis’s Lectures on Mathematics

    • Sebastián Molina-Betancur
    Pages 55-87

  5. Newton’s Physics in New Granada: Mutis’s Lectures and Mathematisation of Nature

    • Sebastián Molina-Betancur
    Pages 89-142

  6. The Circulation of Newtonianism in New Granada After Mutis’s Lectures

    • Sebastián Molina-Betancur
    Pages 143-184

  7. Conclusions

    • Sebastián Molina-Betancur
    Pages 185-191

  8. Back Matter

    Pages 193-212
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Keywords

About this book

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.

Reviews

Dr Molina-Betancur offers a vivid portray of the intellectual and teaching activities developed in the mathematical chair set up at Bogotá in the 1760s. The book illuminates the education of the elites in Nueva Granada, one of the major administrative divisions of Spanish America in the 18th century, with interesting asides to discuss the role of scientific education in the intellectual and political movements there. Dr Molina-Betancur's account of the appropriation of Newton's Principia and its adaption to local needs, including his discussion of an 18th-century Spanish translation of the Principia, is a major contribution to understanding the role of Newtonianism in the 18ht-century.

Antoni Malet, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Sebastián Molina-Betancur

About the author

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).

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: José Celestino Mutis and Newtonianism in New Granada, 1762–1808

  • Authors: Sebastián Molina-Betancur

  • Series Title: Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28768-8

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: History, History (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-28767-1Published: 18 June 2023

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-28770-1Due: 19 July 2023

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-28768-8Published: 17 June 2023

  • Series ISSN: 2730-972X

  • Series E-ISSN: 2730-9738

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XI, 212

  • Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations, 6 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Latin American History, History, general, History of Science

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