Principia

In this study (Simsek, 2014), René Descartes' books "Principia Philosophiae" (1644) ("The Principles of Philosophy") and Newton's "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica" (1687) ("The Mathematical Principles of the Philosophy of Nature") were compared. (Both books are now simply referred to as Principia.) The study revealed that Newton, who was well-versed in Descartes' writings, not only based his work on Descartes' Principia in name but also in content (Simsek, 2014, pp. 109-110, 151-152). He adopts not only the number of his three Newtonian laws, but also Descartes' concept (Simsek, 2014, pp. 154-163), as well as his erroneous law of refraction (Simsek, 2014, pp. 208, 209-210). Finally, Newton even goes so far as to refer to his Principia as principles of philosophy in his book Optics (Simsek, 2014, p. 187). I described this at the time as a delayed dialogue (Simsek, 2014, p. 7). This work thus demonstrates the importance of dialogue in science.