NDLI: The Body, the Temple and the Newtonian Man Conundrum

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Morrison, Tessa
Copyright Year	2010
Abstract	From his early days at the University of Cambridge until his death, Isaac Newton had a long running interest in the Temple of Solomon, a topic which appeared in his works on prophecy, chronology and metrology. At the same time that Newton was working on the Principia, he reconstructed the Temple and commented on the reconstructions of others. An important part of his investigations concerned the measurements of the Temple, which were harmonic and were built “exactly as the proportion of architecture demands.” Newton considered these proportions to be in accordance with Book III and IV of De Architectura. However, while insisting on exact architectural proportions, Newton moved away from the traditional proportions of the Vitruvian man; he derived a Newtonian man. This poses an interesting conundrum: Newton accepted the Temple’s architectural proportions as outlined in Vitruvius’s Book III, yet he rejected the human model Vitruvius used as the foundation of these proportions. At the same time Newton accepted the human frame as the basis of all ancient measurements and attempted to estimate the length of the sacred cubit based on the lengths of the parts for the body and the measurements set out by the ancient writers such a Vitruvius.
Starting Page	343
Ending Page	352
Page Count	10
File Format	PDF
ISSN	15905896
Journal	Nexus Network Journal
Volume Number	12
Issue Number	2
e-ISSN	15224600
Language	English
Publisher	SP Birkhäuser Verlag Basel
Publisher Date	2010-05-06
Publisher Place	Basel
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Isaac Newton Temple of Solomon Vitruvius Vitruvian man Newtonian man proportions History Popular Science History and Philosophical Foundations of Physics Mathematics
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
5	Website/Portal (Helpdesk)	Queries regarding NDLI and its services	support@ndl.gov.in
6	Contents and Copyright Issues	Queries related to content curation and copyright issues	content@ndl.gov.in
7	National Digital Library of India Club (NDLI Club)	Queries related to NDLI Club formation, support, user awareness program, seminar/symposium, collaboration, social media, promotion, and outreach	clubsupport@ndl.gov.in
8	Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)	Assistance with digitizing and archiving copyright-free printed books	dpc@ndl.gov.in
9	IDR Setup or Support	Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops	idr@ndl.gov.in

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