My occupation with the history of science began through the mathematician Andreas Speiser, my uncle, at the time the General Editor of the Opera Omnia of Leonhard Euler, who invited me to edit volume III, 5 of the Opera, containing Euler’s work on physical optics.

The Beginning of the Theory of Elasticity from Galileo to Jacob Bernoulli.- The Second New Science in Galileo’s Discorsi.- Huygens’s Horologium Oscillatorium and Newton’s Principia.- Newton’s Principia.- The Science of Mechanics in the Eighteenth Century.- The Discovery of Rigid Body Dynamics.- Johann Bernoulli’s Work on the Theory of Gravitation and the Weight of the Atmosphere.- The Kepler Problem from Newton to Johann Bernoulli.- Daniel Bernoulli.- Leonhard Euler: Mathematician, Physicist, Engineer.- The Principle of Relativity in Euler’s Work.- Euler, the Principle of Relativity and the Fundamentals of Classical Mechanics.- Euler’ s Anleitung zur Naturlehre.- Euler’ s Work in Physical Optics.- Euler’s Writings on Optics, Electricity and Magnetism.- The Distance of the Fixed Stars and the Riddle of the Sun’s Radiation.- Johann Heinrich Lambert.- Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis.

This is a collection of David Speiser’s essays on the history of mechanics during the crucial period 1600-1800. The purpose of the book is to make available in a single volume a selection of the historical papers and lectures assembled over the course of more than forty years of work. The history of mechanics is by now considered of importance for both physics and mathematics, but few historians are competent to address it and the definitive history remains to be written. Ordered chronologically to address historical developments in elasticity, rigid body dynamics, relativity, electricity, magnetism, optics and more by scientists such as Galileo, Huygens, Newton, the Bernoullis, Euler, Lambert and Maupertuis, David Speiser’s essays represent an important step forward. The book includes two lectures that were previously unpublished, and essays originally published in German, French and Italian translated into English, making the work easily accessible for a wide readership of specialists and non-specialists. In collaboration with the author, all essays have been re-edited, and the bibliographies and references have been fully updated. The book includes a forward by the author, an introduction by the editors, and two comprehensive indexes for easy reference.

First book of collected essays of David Speiser The essays, two of which are previously unpublished, have all been re-edited and include updated references, bibliographies, and editors' notes Essays previously pubished in French, German and Italian are translated for the first time into English