Report: “Search is on For Rare Isaac Newton Book, with Three Copies Available in Canadian University Libraries”

Tucked away in three university libraries across Canada are first edition copies of a book that experts say contains the building blocks of science.

Prof. Mordechai Feingold of the California Institute of Technology and Andrej Svorencik of the University of Mannheim in Germany are looking for more copies of Sir Isaac Newton’s “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy” in private collections.

The two experts in September published a paper in their “attempt to locate all surviving copies” of the first edition of Newton’s book.

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A census of the book published in 1953 showed there were 189 copies scattered around the world but a new estimate puts the number at 386.

Dalhousie, McGill and the University of Toronto each have a copy of the 510-page leather-bound book.