<< >On the surface, it appears a compliment - Hooke is called a giant - but
Newton meant quite the reverse.<
<<I suppose someone should point out explicitly that this interpretation is
extremely unlikely. (I do not know who first imagined the idea; it is
mentioned (but dismissed) in a footnote on p. 274 of Westfall's _Never at
Rest_ (1980).) >>
I first heard of the idea (approvingly) from Frank Manuel, who was in what he
used to call the "Newton industry" for a while and published _Isaac Newton,
Historian_ (Cambridge: Harvard U.P., 1963), _A Portrait of Isaac Newton_
(Cambridge: Harvard U.P., 1968), and _The Religion of Isaac Newton_ (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1974). I can't check any of these right now, but Manuel may
be the originator. I find Waterhouse's argument that Newton meant no irony
with "on the shoulders of giants" fairly convincing but not entirely
conclusive. (Historical arguments never are.)
Bill Everdell, Brooklyn