Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton, PRS (25 December 1642 (OS) – 20 March 1727 (OS) / 4 January, 1643 (NS) – 31 March 1727 (NS) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and alchemist. Recognised as a genius of the highest order, he is widely regarded as the most influential scientist in history. He wrote the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (published 5 July 16871), where he described universal gravitation and, via his laws of motion, laid the groundwork for classical mechanics. Newton also shares credit with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for the development of differential calculus. While they both discovered calculus nearly contemporaneously, their work was not a collaboration.

Early life

:The following is a brief biography of Newton's early life. For more in-depth information, see Isaac Newton's early life and achievements.

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Newton was born in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. Newton was premature and no one expected him to live; indeed, his mother is reported to have said that his body at that time could have fit inside a quart mug. His father had died three months before Newton's birth. When Newton was two years old, his mother went to live with her new husband, leaving her son in the care of his grandmother.

Related Topics:
Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth - Lincolnshire

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According to E.T. Bell (1937, Simon and Schuster) and H. Eves:

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:Newton began his schooling in the village schools and was later sent to Grantham Grammar School where he became the top boy in the school. At Grantham he lodged with the local apothecary, William Clarke and eventually became engaged to the apothecary's stepdaughter, Anne Storer, before he went off to Cambridge University at the age of 19. As Newton became engrossed in his studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storer married someone else. It is said he kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other recorded 'sweethearts' and never married. http://scidiv.bcc.ctc.edu/Math/Newton.html It is suspected that he may have been autistic, see Einstein, Newton, and Autism.

Related Topics:
Apothecary - William Clarke - Cambridge University - Autistic - Einstein, Newton, and Autism

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From the age of 12 until he was 17, Newton was educated at Grantham Grammar School. His family then removed him from school and attempted to make a farmer of him. However he was thoroughly unhappy with the work and eventually with the help of his uncle and of his schoolteacher, he managed to persuade his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his schooling. This he did at the age of 18, achieving an admirable final report. His teacher said:

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:His genius now begins to mount upwards apace and shine out with more strength. He excels particularly in making verses. In everything he undertakes, he discovers an application equal to the pregnancy of his parts and exceeds even the most sanguine expectations I have conceived of him.

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In 1661 he joined Trinity College, Cambridge, where his uncle William Ayscough had studied. At that time the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes, Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665 he discovered the binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For the next two years Newton worked at home on calculus, optics and gravitation.

Related Topics:
1661 - Trinity College, Cambridge - Aristotle - Descartes - Galileo - Copernicus - Kepler - 1665 - Binomial theorem - Calculus - Great Plague - Optics - Gravitation

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The popular tradition has it that Newton was sitting under an apple tree when an apple fell on his head, and that this made him understand that earthly and celestial gravitation are the same. A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree." These accounts are exaggerations of Newton's own tale about sitting by a window in his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree. It is now generally considered probable that even this story was invented by Newton in later life, to illustrate how he drew inspiration from everyday events.

Related Topics:
William Stukeley - 15 April - 1726 - Voltaire - Woolsthorpe Manor

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Newton became a fellow of Trinity College in 1667. In the same year he circulated his findings in De Analysi per Aequationes Numeri Terminorum Infinitas (On Analysis by Infinite Series), and later in De methodis serierum et fluxionum (On the Methods of Series and Fluxions), whose title gave the name to his "method of fluxions".

Related Topics:
Trinity College - 1667

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Newton and Leibniz developed the theory of calculus independently, using different notations. Although Newton had worked out his own method before Leibniz, the latter's notation and "Differential Method" were superior, and were generally adopted throughout the English-speaking world. (Curiously, in Germany the Newtonian notation is more popular.) Though Newton belongs among the brightest scientists of his era, the last 25 years of his life were marred by a bitter dispute with Leibniz, whom he accused of plagiarism.

Related Topics:
Leibniz

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He was elected Lucasian professor of mathematics in 1669. Any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be ordained at the time. However the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the normal ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. This prevented the conflict that would have occurred between his religious views and the orthodoxy of the church.

Related Topics:
Lucasian professor - Mathematics - 1669 - Charles II

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