Sir Isaac Newton

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By peace | November 11, 2011

Sir Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727)

Sir Isaac Newton was a brilliant English scientist, and the father of modern science. He was the first to show that nature follows constant laws. His theory of gravitation explained the motion of the planets and stars.

Newton was the son of a gentleman farmer who died before his son was born. He was a tiny baby and not expected to survive. Newton lived to be 84! Isaac’s mother left him to be brought up by his grandmother for nine years, contributing to a sense of insecurity shown in his later life in a violent temper against anyone who suggested his discoveries were mistaken or were not completely his own work.

Newton proved unsuitable for his first job as a manager of a farm, preferring to spend his time thinking under a tree. He became intrigued by the forces of nature, and asked himself whether the force that made an apple fall off a tree to the ground was the same as that which kept the moon circling the Earth.

Newton went to Cambridge University, and by the time he had graduated in 1665, he had made important mathematical discoveries. He became Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. He began research into light, and established that color comes not from an object, but is in the light itself.

Newton’s greatest work was made public in 1687, though he had formulated it some years before. His book, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy was so advanced that it was said there were not a dozen men in Europe who could understand it. His three laws laid down the crucial principle of gravitation; that every particle in the universe attracts every other with a force in proportion to its mass. This provided the answer to his question under the apple tree. “What goes up must come down” was a universal principle, applying as well to planets as to apples. The idea that nature could be reduced to such laws was the beginning of modern scientific method.

Newton’s personal life was punctuated by controversies with fellow scientists, stemming from Newton’s inability to take criticism without exploding into a rage. He had two nervous breakdowns, one produced by the death of his mother, and the other by a quarrel with his close friend, Fatio du Duillier, a Swiss scholar.

Newton sponsored a large group of young scientists from earnings as warden of the Royal Mint. He was the first scientists to be knighted, in 1705, and was a domineering President of the Royal Society, though towards the end of his life he frequently dozed off at meetings. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, as befitted one of his greatness.