Who Was Isaac Newton?
“No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.” – Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton:
- Born: 4 Jan 1643 (Old Style: 25 December 1642), Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, Lincolnshire, England
- Died: 31 March 1727 (aged 84), Kensington, Middlesex, England
- Profession: Polymath – Fields: Physics, Mathematics, Natural Philosophy and more
- Known for: Newton’s Laws of motion, Newtonian Mechanics, and more
Newton’s Work
Sir Isaac Newton’s past is overflowing with achievements throughout many fields, including physics, mathematics and optics. Here are some of his most incredible work:
- Newton established 3 laws of motion that govern the movement of all objects larger than an atom, unless they are moving at close to speed of light. His discovery showed why planets orbit the Sun and realized that a planet’s orbit depends on its mass and its distance from the Sun.
- Newton discovered that every object in the universe attracts every other object in the Universe. To calculate the pull of gravity between 2 objects, multiply their masses together, then divide the total by the square of the distance between them. Thanks to this formula, scientists detected new stars and planets.
- In the 1660s Newton discovered that sunlight can be split into a spectrum made of all the colours of the rainbow. He divided the colours of the rainbow into 7, by separating the white light using a prism. These colours are: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet- ROYGBIV. He went on to developing a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism separates white light into the colours of the visible spectrum.
- Newton built the first reflecting telescope in 1668 and is the earliest known functional reflecting telescope.
Laws of Motion – Law 1
“Any object stays still or moved at a steady speed in a straight line at a constant velocity UNLESS it is pushed or pulled by a force.” In other words, an object does not move unless something forces it to (inertia) and it will go on moving at the same speed ad direction unless force to change (momentum).
Laws of Motion – Law 2
The greater the mass of an object, the more force is needed to make it speed up, slow down, or change direction.
Laws of Motion – Law 3
“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction” . In short – when something pushes off in one direction, the thing it’s pushing from is pushed back with an equal force in the opposite direction.
Bonus Facts
- Family – Newton’s father, also named Isaac Newton, had died three months before Isaac was born. His mother, Hannah, had remarried but Newton disliked his stepfather.
- Farming Future – Somewhere around his teen years, Isaac’s mother removed him from school to become a farmer, but the master and reverend of the school he attended persuaded Isaac’s mother to send him back. He became a top-class student which enabled him to enrol to a university.
- Teaching – Newton was not effective in teaching others. According to Wikipedia, his classes were almost always empty. He did not enjoy teaching, and, over his career, he was only assigned three students to tutor and none were “noteworthy”.
- Books Published: Isaac Newton Published 3 Major Books – Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687), Opticks (1704), The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (published posthumously in 1728).
- Alchemy: Newton dedicated much of his time to the study of alchemy and biblical chronology, but most of his work in those areas remained unpublished until long after his death.
- Burial Ground – Newton died in his sleep and was buried in Westminster Abbey in London among kings and queens. He was the first scientist to be buried in the abbey.
Did Einstein Correct Newton’s Work?
Short answer is yes – the laws are crucial for everyday objects, like the moving ball experiment we did. But for objects travelling at nearly the speed of light then the formula needs to be replaced by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Here is what I’ve learned:
- Before Einstein, scientists had thought what Newton had imagined, that space was flat and empty. So in Newton’s Theory of Gravitation there was nothing in it about warped Space. Therefore, Einstein was trying to find a wat or see if the world he was on was curved, too.” “David Bodanis, Einstein’s greatest mistake – “Einstein’s Greatest Mistake”, David Bodanis
- Einstein proved that this (Newton’s Law) could be wrong, because based on his new equation, planet Mercury would advance in a fashionly order ever so slightly different from what Newton predicted.
- ” Newton’s Law of Gravitation is not correct! It was modified by Einstein to take into account the theory of Relativity. According to Newton, the gravitational effect is instantaneous – that is, if we were to move a mass, we would at once feel a new force, because of the new position of the mass. By such means, we could send signals at infinite speed. Einstein argued that we cannot send signals faster than the speed of light. By correcting it to take into account the delays, we have a new law, called Einstein’s Law of Gravitation” – “Six Easy Pieces”, by Richard Feynman
Resources
Books used for article research
- Six Easy Pieces, Richard Feynman
- Almost Everyone’s Guide to Science, John Gribbin
- Pythagoras, Kitty Ferguson
- Einstein’s Greatest Mistake, David Bodanis
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I love Richard Feynman and found his books to be really good and easy to understand!