Kepler's area law in the \textit{Principia}: filling in some details in Newton's proof of Proposition 1. (Q1421933)

Proposition 1 in Book 1 of the \textit{Principia} is of central importance because its proof of Kepler's area law allowed Newton to introduce a geometric measure for time to solve problems in orbital dynamics. The adequacy of Newton's proof of this Prop. 1 has been regarded controversial during the past 30 years. The author shows that the critics have misunderstood Newton's continuum limit argument by neglecting to consider the justification which he gave in Lemma~3. By filling in some details left out by Newton, the author clarifies now that Newton's proof was adequate and well-grounded. It is shown that Newton discovered Prop. 1 precisely already in 1679 because at this time he turned to a nontraditional view of orbital motion which had been suggested to him by Robert Hooke after a lengthy correspondence. This Prop. 1 appeared for the first time in a short manuscript \textit{De Motu} that Newton had sent in 1684 to Halley.