Newton's greatest work, Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica, was completed in eighteen months. 1656 –1743), Newton put together the results of his work on the laws of motion, which became the great Principia. Several years later, at the urging of the astronomer Edmund Halley (c. He vowed he would never publish again, even threatening to give up science altogether. At first Newton patiently answered his critics with further explanations, but when these produced more criticism, he became angry. Many scientists refused to accept the findings, and others were strongly opposed to conclusions that seemed to show that popular theories of light were false. The paper was published in the society's Philosophical Transactions. But when he decided to send the society a paper describing his experiments on light and the conclusions he had drawn from them, the results almost changed history for the worst. Newton was honored when the members of the Royal Society were impressed by his reflecting telescope and when they elected him to their membership. In 1672 he sent one of these to the Royal Society ( Great Britain's oldest organization of scientists). Newton built several reflecting models in which the image was viewed in a concave (rounded like the inside of a bowl) mirror through an eyepiece in the side of the tube. His discoveries about the nature and properties of light had led him to turn to suggestions for a reflecting telescope rather than current ones based on the refractive (bending) principle. His experiments in this area had grown out of his interest in improving the effectiveness of telescopes (instruments that enable the user to view distant objects through the bending of light rays through a lens). Newton's main interest at the time was optics, and for several years his lectures were devoted to the subject. Newton became a professor of mathematics at age twenty-seven and stayed at Trinity in that capacity for twenty-seven years. When Barrow resigned to take another job in 1669, he recommended that Newton take his place. His mathematics professor, Isaac Barrow, was the first to recognize Newton's unusual ability. Of expanding on the work he had started at Woolsthorpe. Returning to Cambridge in 1667, Newton quickly completed the requirements for his master's degree and then began a period Newton also developed his own system of calculus (a form of mathematics used to solve problems in physics). The story that a falling apple suggested the idea of gravitation to him seems to be true. Newton returned to Woolsthorpe for eighteen months, from 1666 to 1667, during which time he performed the basic experiments and did the thinking for his later work on gravitation (the attraction the mass of the Earth has for bodies near its surface) and optics (the study of light and the changes it experiences and produces). After receiving his bachelor's degree in 1665, Newton stayed on for his master's, but an outbreak of the plague (a highly infectious and deadly disease often carried by rats)Ĭaused the university to close. At the age of nineteen he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, England. He preferred reading to working, though, and it became apparent that farming was not his destiny. Newton was interested in Clark's chemical library and laboratory and built mechanical devices to amuse Clark's daughter, including a windmill run by a live mouse, floating lanterns, and sun dials.Īfter Newton's stepfather died, his mother returned to Woolsthorpe, and she pulled him out of school to help run the family farm. After a basic education in local schools, at the age of twelve he was sent to the King's School in Grantham, England, where he lived in the home of a pharmacist (one who prepares and distributes medication) named Clark. When he was three years old, his mother remarried and moved away, leaving Isaac in the care of his grandmother. His father died two months before he was born. Isaac Newton was born on Christmas Day, 1642, at Woolsthorpe, a village in southwestern Lincolnshire, England. He made major contributions in mathematics and physics (the study of the relationship between matter and energy) and advanced the work of previous scientists on the laws of motion, including the law of gravity. Isaac Newton was an English scientist and mathematician. Born: DecemWoolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England Died: MaLondon, England English scientist and mathematician
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