Background Information about Isaac
Newton
When and
where was he born and died?
Isaac Newton
was born on January 4, 1643 in Woolsthorpe, England to parents Isaac Newton Sr.
who was a farmer and died three months before Newton was born and Hannah
Ayscough who remarried and left Newton to his grandmother to care for. Newton
then died on March 31, 1727 in Kensington, England aged 84.
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| Isaac Newton |
Newton’s
Education
Newton
attended the Old King’s School in Grantham as a child and later continued his
education at Cambridge University in 1661, becoming interested in maths,
physics, astronomy and optics, however a plague epidemic came around in October
1665, forcing the closure of the university. Despite the closure of the
university, Newton returned to Woolsthorpe where he dedicated his time to maths
and optics and began thinking about gravity. Newton then returned to Cambridge
University in 1667 and also became part of Trinity College.
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| Cambridge University 1661 |
Positions
held by Newton throughout his life
Throughout
Newton’s extremely successful life, he held many major positions. In 1669,
Newton was selected as the second Lucasian
professor of mathematics. Due to Newton’s reflecting telescope made in 1668, he
brought the attention of the scientific community resulting in Newton becoming a
member of the Royal Society in 1672. From here, he was appointed to be part of
parliament for Cambridge University between years 1689 – 1690 and then from
1701 – 1702. As Newton settled in London, he was assigned as a warden for the
Royal Mint in 1696. Whilst taking this role seriously, he was nominated as
president for the Royal Society where he kept this position until his death.
Awards Newton Received
Newton was knighted by Queen Anne in
1705 and as a result, became known as Sir Isaac Newton.
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| Newton being knighted by Queen Anne |
Newton’s Religious Beliefs
It is said that Newton spent more time
studying religion than he did on science and maths. A book of his
non-scientific writings was auctioned off in 1936 and it was from here that
Newton’s religious beliefs were discovered. It is said that Newton would spend
days or up to weeks studying the Bible and focused on the prophets, miracles,
determining the dates of the books in the Old Testament and analysing scriptures
in order to determine their author. As a member of an Anglican Church, Newton
was heavily involved with the works of the parish. This included being part of
a team to build 50 churches across London and paying for the delivery of Bibles
to the poor. Although Newton spent most of his time discovering the Bible,
Newton was most famous for his works in science.
How Isaac Newton was seen by his
peers/scientific community
As mentioned above (Positions Held by
Newton Throughout his Life), Newton was first recognised by the scientific
community for his development of the reflecting telescope. As Newton discovered
formulas for physics, he was again instantly recognised by the community for
the ground-breaking findings made. They also saw that Newton’s discoveries were
proven with such precision and reasoning and could not be argued against.
Scientific
Contributions Made by Isaac Newton
Throughout his life, Isaac Newton made
many contributions to the scientific world including the areas of motion,
gravity, optics and maths.
Motion
Newton developed three laws of motion,
including the Law of Inertia, the law that force is equal to the mass times by
the acceleration and the law that every action has an equal and opposite
reaction.
·
Law of Inertia:
The law of inertia
states that an object will stay at rest or continue to move in a straight line
at a constant speed until an external or unbalanced force acts on it. For
example if you were to push a box with the force coming from the inside of it,
it would not move and therefore stay at a rest position. The force must be external
in order to move the box. This force acting upon the box can either cause the
box to increase its velocity, decrease its velocity, change its direction or
change its shape.
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| Newton's first law of motion |
·
Force = Mass *
acceleration
Newton’s second law
states that an external unbalanced force will cause an object to accelerate in
the direction of the force. To determine the force, you will need to know the
mass of the object and the acceleration at which the object is traveling at.
From here, you can then put this information into the equation F=M*a. For
example if an object weighing 10kg is moving at a 5m/s2 ,the force
will be 50N.
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| Newton's second law of motion |
·
Every action has an
equal and opposite reaction
Newton’s third law suggests
that every action has a reaction. To explain this, we can use an example of a balloon. When the air of the balloon comes out, the balloon will go up. The air is the action and the balloon going up the is equal and opposite reaction.
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| Newton's third law of motion |
Gravity
Newton’s scientific contribution to the
area of gravity started off with the ‘apple incident’ which will be explained
in further detail below, however due to this incident, Newton determined that
gravity makes things fall when dropped and is what holds things down to the
Earth. He also determined that gravity is why planets revolve around the sun,
why moons circle the planets and the reason of why ocean tides exist.
Optics
In 1670, Newton studied optics and the
colour spectrum. A well-known experiment conducted on this was the refracting
of light off a prism resulting of the colours found in a rainbow – red, orange,
yellow, green, blue and violet. As a result, the Theory of Colour was
established. This theory suggested that this outcome occurred was due to the
fact that certain colours developed as different amounts of light were absorbed
and reflected. Newton’s finding was proved that colour was purely due to light
which caused much disagreement between those of the scientific world. Those who
didn’t agree with Newton’s discovery thought that colour was due to prisms like
the one of Newton’s experiment. Despite this, Newton created the first colour
wheel to prove his point and further went on to explain the formation of
rainbows.
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| Pyramid refracting light |
Mathematics
During the time of the Great Plague,
Newton built on the earlier theory of calculus by John Wallis, Isaac Barrow and
several other mathematicians. Calculus allowed engineers and mathematicians to
understand motion and the way things such as gravity and the orbiting of
planets occur.
Scientific Developments led from
Newton’s discoveries and the Impact made on Present day Science and Society.
Despite
Newton’s discoveries, there were several scientific developments following it.
Newton’s law of universal gravitation was significantly improved by Albert
Einstein and his theory of relativity. Newton stated that gravity is a
distinctive force of an object which can act over a distance. Einstein
corrected this by saying that large objects can cause a distortion in the time
in space and therefore this is why gravity exists. Despite this, Newton’s law
of universal gravitation strongly led physics for more than 200 years.
Newton’s
work has had a major impact on present day science and the society due to the
revolutionary discoveries of his laws. Newton’s laws in science and maths such
as the laws of inertia, acceleration, action – reaction, gravity, optics and
calculus have helped the society of today to find out the very many things about
the universe that have questioned us and has permanently changed the way that
we see the world and how it works.
The Apple Incident
It is known
that Newton was sitting underneath an apple tree when an apple fell from it and
hitting him in the head when he began to think about gravity, however, this is
not quite the case. Newton and biographer William Stukeley were sitting
underneath an apple tree. Stukeley who then published a biography on Newton states
that while sitting there, an apple fell, hitting the ground and it is from here
that Newton questioned why objects fall perpendicular to the ground. This
incident then made Newton discover the theory of gravity. Although with this
theory, the society of today still does not quite understand gravity.
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| The apple incident |
· (22 May 2014) ‘Historic Figures –
Isaac Newton (1643 – 1727)’, BBC History [WWW], http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/newton_isaac.shtml
· (22 May 2014) ‘The Faith Behind the
Famous: Isaac Newton’, Christianity Today [WWW], http://www.ctlibrary.com/ch/1991/issue30/3038.html
· (24 May 2014) ‘ The Scientific
Revolution (1550 – 1700)’, Sparknotes [WWW], http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/scientificrevolution/section8.rhtml
· (25 May 2014) ‘Sir Isaac Newton’, Sir
Isaac Newton’s Three Laws of Motion [WWW], http://teachertech.rice.edu/Participants/louviere/Newton/newton.html
· Mr Nussbaum (25 May 2014) ‘Sir Isaac
Newton Biography for Kids – Founder of Calculus’, Mr Nussbaum – Learning +
Fun [WWW], http://mrnussbaum.com/pioneers/isaac_newton/
· (26 May 2014) ‘Einstein’s Theory of
General Relativity’, Space.com [WWW], http://www.space.com/17661-theory-general-relativity.html
· (26 May 2014) ‘How Isaac Newton
Worked’, How Stuff Works [WWW], http://science.howstuffworks.com/dictionary/famous-scientists/physicists/isaac-newton2.htm
· Amanda Gefter (27 May 2014) ‘Newton’s
Apple: The Real Story’, CultureLab [WWW], http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2010/01/newtons-apple-the-real-story
· Steve Connor (27 May 2014) ‘The core
of the truth behind Sir Isaac Newton’s Apple’, The Independent [WWW], http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-core-of-truth-behind--sir-isaac-newtons-apple-1870915.html
