Henry Pemberton
(1694 - 9 Mar 1771)
English physician and man of letters who became the Gresham Professor of Physic (1928), and as a close friend of Isaac Newton, edited his third edition of Principia Mathematica.
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Science Quotes by Henry Pemberton (1 quote)
As he sat alone in a garden, he [Isaac Newton in 1666, age 24] fell into a speculation on the power of gravity; that as this power is not found sensibly diminished at the remotest distance from the centre of the earth to which we can rise, neither at the tops of the loftiest buildings, nor even on the summits of the highest mountains, it appeared to him reasonable to conclude that this power must extend much further than was usually thought: why not as high as the moon? said he to himself; and if so, her motion must be influenced by it; perhaps she is retained in her orbit thereby.
— Henry Pemberton
View of Newton's Philosophy (1728), preface. In William Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences (1847), Vol. 2, 166. Pemberton's narrative is based on firsthand conversations with Newton himself.