Sir Isaac Newton 1642 1727 English Physicist Mathematician

Sir Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727) • English Physicist, Mathematician, Inventor. Made many major contributions to math, physics, & many other areas. A GENIUS!! He has been called the “Greatest Scientist Who Ever Lived”!

Sir Isaac Newton

German Postage Stamp Death Mask! Gravestone English Money Gravestone Inscription “Mortals! Rejoice at so great an ornament to the human race!”

Sir Isaac Newton “Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night God said ‘Let Newton be!’ And all was light. ” - Alexander Pope

Some Newton Cartoons

Some Forces & Gravity Cartoons

A “Simple Anti-Gravity” Device!! A cat + a piece of buttered toast!!

A “Simple Anti-Gravity” Device!! A cat + a piece of buttered toast!!

A “Simple Anti-Gravity” Device!! A cat + a piece of buttered toast!!

Interesting (to me!) historical facts about Isaac Newton From the Appendix to the book: A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

Interesting (to me!) historical facts about Isaac Newton From the Appendix to the book: A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

Newton’s Formative (Younger) Years • Born: December 25, 1642 (January 4, 1643) Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England. • Raised by his grandparents. • Pulled out of school at 14 to run the family farm. Newton Residence • He wasn’t good at farming, ~ 1689 so they sent him back to school!!

Newton’s Education • Entered Trinity College at Cambridge University at age 18 and began studying to become a minister! • Graduated at age 23 • Returned to the farm because of the Black Death (Plague) – He got bored and ended up working on the binomial theorem, light, telescopes, calculus, and theology. Newton ~ 1702

Colleagues and Rivals • He was friends with Edmond Halley, the astronomer famous for Halley’s comet. • Robert Hooke, and G. W Leibniz were colleagues whom he had heated arguments with so they may be considered rivals. “Mr. Hook said he had it, but that he would conceal it for some time so that others, trying and failing might know how to value it, when he should make it public. ”

Newton & Calculus • Newton started developing Calculus as early as 1666 but never got around to publishing much of it. • In 1668, Gottfried Leibniz began developing similar ideas & published them before Newton published his work. • Arguing over who was first became bitter & personal!! • For derivatives, Leibniz used the (dy/dx) notation; Newton used ẏ.

Scientific Accomplishments • Among his MANY ACCOMPLISHMENTS: 1. Newton’s Laws of Motion 2. Theory of Gravitational Force 3. Theory of the Orbital Period of the Moon 4. Co-Inventor of Calculus 5. Newton’s Theory of Color

Newton & Opticks (This is how “optics” is spelled in Old English!) • Newton discovered that light is made up of a spectrum of colors. • He made the first telescope that used a curved mirror instead of lenses. • He believed that light was made up of particles (“corpuscles”) rather than waves (Hooke & Huygens disagreed). • He didn’t publish this until after Newton Hooke’s death in 1703. in his lab

The Telescope • His first real step into the scientific world was when he invented the telescope. – He even made the tools he needed for this job

A Newtonian Telescope

Laws of Motion & Gravity Newton Formulated Newton’s Laws of Motion. • Proved that the force of gravity between 2 masses is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. • Used the Laws of Motion + the Gravitation Law + Calculus to prove that the planetary orbits about the sun are ellipses, in agreement with observation!

Laws of Motion & Gravity Newton and many others considered his solution to the planetary orbit problem to be his “Greatest Achievement”. • After solving this + making many contributions to optics, he decided to work on changing lead into gold (alchemy!) & also to do biblical research.

Theory of Color • Newton was the first to understand the rainbow • He refracted white light with a prism, resolving it into its component colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue & violet.

Theory of Color • At the time, people thought that color was a mixture of light and darkness, and that prisms colored light. Newton proved this to be wrong. • He set up a prism near his window, and projected a beautiful spectrum 22 feet onto the far wall. • Further, to prove that the prism was not coloring the light, he refracted the light back together.

Newton’s Particle Theory of Light • Light is made up of tiny particles – Because of this, when two beams of light intersect they do not scatter off each other • Particles of light obey the same laws of physics as other masses • A horizontal beam of light near the earth is undergoing projectile motion, and forms a parabola. • The straight line we see is due to the fact that the speed of the particles is so great.

Newton & Alchemy • Newton was not well known as an alchemist but it was actually one of his passions. He did it in secret because it was considered witchcraft by the government. – Alchemy is in short trying to make metals such al lead into gold • His servants would say that he would spend weeks in his laboratory working on alchemy experiments

Newton’s Religious Views Newton • Was a devout, fundamentalist Protestant. • Was strongly Anti-Catholic. • Wrote a book about the fall of Christianity in the 4 th Century A. D. • Had religious ideas that sometimes got him into trouble because he taught at a church-run university.

Newton’s Religious Views A Newton Quote “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being. . . This Being governs all things. . . as Lord of all. . . Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance. ”

Newtonian Trivia Newton • Became Master of the Royal Mint in 1699. • Was the first scientist to be knighted for his work (1708). • Was elected President of the Royal Society every year from 1703 to 1727. • Was a member of Parliament (1689 -1690). • Died in 1727. Newton in 1726

Some Famous Newton Quotes (about his scientific achievements) • “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. ” • “If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent. ” • “Whatever I have accomplished, it was possible because I stood on the shoulders of Giants”

Death • He died in 1727 • When he was eighty he began to suffer from incontinence, due to a weakness in the bladder, and his movement and diet became restricted. • He then got bladder stones • In 1725 he fell ill with gout, and endured hemorrhoids

Death • The pain from his bladder stones grew worse, and on March 19, 1727, he blacked out, never to regain consciousness. • He died on March 20, at the age of 85.

End of an Era • Newton was knighted by Queen Anne in 1705. • It is believed he never had a romantic relationship. He never married • There is some speculation that Newton had Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism • In the last few years of his life he was troubled by urinary problem probably due to kidney stones • He endured great suffering. On March 18 th he became ‘crazy’ around 6 pm and stayed in that state until Monday March 20 th 1727 when he died between one and two in the morning. • His body was moved to London and on Tuesday March 28 th it lay in state in the Jerusalem Chambers in Westminster Abbey, then moved to his burial location in the Abbey.

• Newton's conceptions of gravity and mechanics, though not entirely correct in light of Einstein's Theory of Relativity, still represent an enormous step in the evolution of human understanding of the universe. For this reason, he is generally considered one of history's greatest scientists, ranking alongside such figures as Einstein and Gauss. • The law of gravity became Sir Isaac Newton's bestknown discovery. Newton warned against using it to view the universe as a mere machine, like a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done. "