Sir Isaac Newton PRS MP
Doug Heymann
Sir Isaac Newton PRS MP (Dec 25, 1642 - Mar 20, 1726) was an English
physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist
and theologian widely known around the world as an important character
at the time of the scientific revolution and one of the most influential
scientists ever. Newton is known for much of his work having to do with
the basis of standard mechanics, optics, laws of motion and universal
gravitation, and the invention of the world-wide use of the math called
calculus. He came about much progress that is used in modern day and
proves his work in these areas such as a prism and telescope, different
universal formulas, laws of motion and universal gravitation, and
standard mechanics. Newton is a hero to myself and all because his work
advanced the public view of how things worked in the world and moved
people passed just thinking that the world worked because it did. He his
a hero to me because in the near future when I get into highschool, I
get to learn all about his works in the area of calculus and think just
like he did back in the day.
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| Sir Isaac Newton |
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Principia
Mathematica |
When people, including myself, think of Isaac Newton without much
background knowledge, our first thought tends to be that he created some
laws of motion and universal gravitation. Newton was actually very
famous for these discoveries and that’s why people hear about him so
commonly. Newton wanted to believe that motion and gravity was more than
just something that existed. The famous story of the apple incident was
a story that Newton himself told about how he was inspired to develop
his theory of gravitation based on an apple falling from a tree. Some
say that it’s a myth and that he did not reach his theory of gravity at
any one moment. Friends of Newton do confirm this but not the cartoonish
version where the apple actually hit his head. In July of 1687,
Newton’s book, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica,
was published with some financial help from Edmond Halley. In this
piece of work, Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that
allowed many advances of the industrial revolution to take place which
wouldn’t change for 200 years and are still the building blocks of
technologies of modern day. He used the word gravitas (translated to
“weight”) to describe the effect later known as gravity and defined the
law of universal gravitation. Newton’s first law (referred to as the law
of inertia) states
that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in
uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a
net external force. His second law states that an applied force on an
object equals the rate of change of its momentum with time. His third
law states
that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. These
three laws of motion and gravitation changed the way scientists viewed
motion and gravitation and advanced the world immensely during the
scientific revolution.
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| Light Prism |
From 1670-1672, Newton got interested and took on the scientific area
of optics. An amazing discovery that he made was that a prism could
break down white light into an entire spectrum of colors, also known as
refraction of light. To extend upon this, he proved that by just using a
lens and a second prism, he could recompile that color spectrum back
into white light. Newton figured out after some testing that weather
light was scattered, transmitted, or reflected, it stayed the same color
and thus he created what we call “Newton’s theory of color” that proved
color was the result of a number of things encountering already-colored
light instead of objects creating their own color. The famous object we
refer to today as a “telescope” was actually something Newton created
while he stumbled upon a problem. He figured out that the lense of ANY
refracting telescope would undergo the separation of light into
different colors. As proof of this, he designed a telescope that used a
mirror as the object to fix the problem. By doing this, he created the
first working telescope, The Newtonian Telescope. In 1671, the Royal
Society wanted him to demonstrate his work of art and he was then
inspired to publish his works on color, which he later expanded into
optics.
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| Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz |
In
the modern world of today, typical high school classes contain a
section on calculus, the famous works of Isaac Newton. But some say that
that’s not entirely true. Newton was involved in a prolonged dispute
with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz on who officially created infinitesimal
calculus, known as the Leibniz–Newton calculus controversy. Historians,
over the years, have had a hard time going one way or the other, but
there is some solid evidence to help. Some, on the side of Leibniz,
argue that he had already published a full account of his methods while
Newton had yet to publish anything at all. But in Newton’s defense, such
an argument could be proved invalid because of the lack of flowing
content and holes in the information as critics of Newton have pointed
out. Soon after Leibniz’s, Newton published the Principia which
had been said to be "a book dense with the theory and application of
the infinitesimal calculus". However, Newton was very reluctant because
he worried that his work would rouse criticism and debate. But in 1699,
the Royal Society (PRS which Newton was part of) discovered that
Leibniz had plagiarized Newton’s work. Full dispute erupted in 1711
after the Royal Society had proclaimed Leibniz to be fraud. In the end,
full credit for the discovery of calculus was given to Isaac Newton.
When one looks back over Newton’s life, this heavy impression forms
that Newton really accomplished a lot over his lifetime starting from
when he was just 5-years-old. By the time Newton was 12, he had
discovered his knack for science and was already exploring very mature
aspects of the world through his own eye. The average teen of today’s
generation can’t say that they’ve even come close to what Isaac Newton
was able to achieve in his time. Some may think that they have so much
more time to imagine what they want to be when they grow up, but
starting at a young age and developing that liking for something is
crucial. This is why Isaac Newton is a hero to me. A hero is someone
that stands out. Someone that wants to take on their own path and leaves
a solid trail behind. Without Newton, it could have been a long while
until someone had uncovered these mysteries, if at all. Without Newton,
gravity and motion would have been something that worked because it just
did. Without Newton, light and the whole concept of optics would have
just been another unsolved mystery. Without Newton, calculus, this
extremely advanced form of math, would have never even existed. But
because Sir Isaac Newton decided to be a hero, the world became a
different place for the better.
History Channel
http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/ufhatch/pages/01-courses/current-courses/08sr-newton.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton
http://www.newton.ac.uk/newtlife.htm
http://www.christophercrockett.com
http://www.ebooks.adelaide.edu.au
We learned many things from the Scientific Revolution, including space science. Johannes Kepler was one of the few people that made immense discoveries about space. Kepler discovered laws of planetary motion and how planets rotated around the sun.
