- ISAAC NEWTON BIOGRAPHY
- ISAAC NEWTON, English Physicist,
Mathematician, Father of Modern Science, who DEVELOPED the LAW OF
GRAVITY and declared "If I have seen further it is by standing on the
shoulders of giants"!
-
- ISAAC NEWTON
was born
on Jan. 4, 1643 in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England. His
father died before he was born. His mother remarried and left 3
year old Isaac to live with his grandmother, leaving a severe
psychological scar on Isaac.
-
- Newton's uncle was a
graduate of the University of Cambridge
and encouraged Isaac
to study there. He entered Cambridge in 1661 and discovered the
work of
Rene
Descartes (French
Mathematician, Writer, Academic, Scientist). Newton was also
influenced by
Galileo,
Copernicus and Robert Boyle
(Father of Chemistry). Newton developed the binomial
theorem, fractional powers of algebraic expression. By 1665,
Newton developed the method for finding slopes of curves, now
known as DIFFERENTIAL CALCULUS.
The plague caused the university to close and Newton went home
between 1666 and 1667. It's in the period that Newton changed
history by experimenting with passing sunlight through a prism
(which led to the development of optics) and studying the theory
of gravity, analyzing whether the same force that causes an
apple to fall also affects the Moon. Newton himself said that in
Woolsthorpe between 1666 and 1667, he saw an apple falling and
that led to his theory of gravity.
-
- Newton built the first
reflecting telescope in 1668. In 1672, Newton sent his paper to
the Royal Society
(the leading British scientific society) proving that white is a
mixture of all colors. He also sent one of his telescopes to the
Royal Society. The members were impressed, which led Newton to
write a paper describing his experiments on light. The
scientists Robert Hooke
and Christiaan Huygens VICIOUSLY ATTACKED
Newton for his findings. Newton tried to defend himself, but was
only attacked even more. It is in one of his letters to Robert
Hooke, that Isaac Newton stated the famous line
"If I have seen further it is by standing on the
shoulders of giants."
-
- The astronomer
Edmund Halley
(of "Halley's Comet"
fame) urged Newton to publish
his laws of motion. In 1687, Newton published the famous
"PHILOSOPHIAE NATURALIS PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA",
which described his laws of gravity and motion and is considered
the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK ON PHYSICS and
perhaps ALL SCIENCE.
Newton states how gravity explains the falling of objects on
earth as well as the motion of the planets, comets and other
objects. This publication includes Newton's famous
3 Laws of Motion:
- LAW #1: INERTIA
- A stationary body tends to
stay stationary unless an external force is applied.
- LAW #2:
The FORCE
on an object is equal to the
Mass Times Acceleration.
- LAW #3:
For every ACTION
there is an equal and opposite REACTION.
-
- After Hooke and Huygens
died, Newton published "Opticks"
in 1704. In 1705, Isaac Newton became the first scientist
to be knighted (by Queen Anne)
and became SIR Isaac Newton.
-
- In 1727, Newton began
feeling ill with abdominal pain. He blacked out and never
recovered. Newton died on March 31, 1727 in London at the age of
85. By that time, Newton was extremely respected. He received a
huge funeral and was the first scientist to be buried in
Westminster Abbey.
-
- Issac Newton was one of the leaders
of the 17th century Scientific Revolution and is considered as
one of the greatest scientist who ever lived.
