Who is Isaac Newton?
English polymath Sir Isaac Newton was active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and writer from 4 January 1643 to 31 March 1727. During the Scientific Revolution and the ensuing Enlightenment, Newton played a significant role. First published in 1687, his book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) developed classical mechanics and accomplished the first great unification in physics. Although he created calculus years before German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Newton is credited with creating infinitesimal calculus and made significant advances to optics. Newton is credited with developing and perfecting the scientific method, and his contributions are regarded as the most significant in the development of contemporary science.
Newton established the principles of motion and universal gravitation in the Principia, which dominated science for centuries until the theory of relativity overtook it. He eliminated any uncertainty regarding the heliocentricity of the Solar System by using his mathematical explanation of gravity to deduce Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, account for tides, comet trajectories, the precession of the equinoxes, and other phenomena. Newton created the three-body dilemma after resolving the two-body problem. He proved that the same concepts could be used to explain the motion of heavenly bodies and objects on Earth.
The majority of European scientists were persuaded that Newtonian mechanics was better to previous systems after geodetic observations by Alexis Clairaut, Charles Marie de La Condamine, and others validated Newton’s conclusion that the Earth is an oblate spheroid. In addition, he described an early version of the contemporary wind tunnel and was the first to determine the age of the Earth by experimentation.
Based on the discovery that a prism divides white light into the visible spectrum’s colors, Newton created the first reflecting telescope and formulated a complex theory of color. His book Opticks, which was published in 1704, compiled his writings on light. He invented prisms as beam expanders and multiple-prism arrays, which would eventually play a crucial role in the creation of lasers with adjustable beams.
In addition, he was the first to theorize the Goos–Hänchen effect and predicted wave–particle duality. He also established the first theoretical calculation of the speed of sound, introduced the concepts of a Newtonian fluid and a black body, and developed an empirical law of cooling, which was the first statement of heat transfer and forms the formal basis of convective heat transfer.
Additionally, he was the first to describe the Magnus effect. He also conducted preliminary research on electricity. Newton’s contributions to mathematics were numerous and included the development of calculus. His contributions to the study of Cremona transformations included the classification of the majority of cubic plane curves, the introduction of the Puiseux series, the first statement of Bézout’s theorem, the generalization of the binomial theorem to any real number, the development of a technique for approximating a function’s roots, and the creation of the Newton–Cotes formulas for numerical integration. He was a pioneer in vector analysis, developed an early version of regression analysis, and further established the discipline of calculus of variations.
At the age of 26, Newton was named the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Trinity College. In private, he disapproved of the Trinity idea, despite being a devoted but unconventional Christian. Unlike the majority of the Cambridge faculty at the time, he declined to accept holy orders in the Church of England. Newton spent a lot of time studying alchemy and biblical chronology in addition to the mathematical sciences, but the majority of his work in these fields was not published until well after his passing. Newton, who was personally and politically associated with the Whig party, was a member of parliament representing the University of Cambridge for two brief periods, from 1689 to 1690 and from 1701 to 1702.
He spent the final thirty years of his life in London after being knighted by Queen Anne in 1705. He was the president of the Royal Society (1703–1727) and the Warden (1696–1699) and Master (1699–1727) of the Royal Mint, where he improved the security and precision of British currency.
Early Life
According to the Julian calendar that was in use in England at the time, Isaac Newton was born on Christmas Day, December 25, 1642 (NS 4 January 1643), at Woolsthorpe Manor in the hamlet of Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth in the county of Lincolnshire. Three months prior, his father, Isaac Newton, had passed away. Newton’s mother, Hannah Ayscough, said that her prematurely born kid could have fit inside a quart mug. Newton was left in the custody of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough (née Blythe), after his mother remarried and moved in with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabas Smith, when Newton was three years old. According to this entry in a list of crimes committed up until the age of 19, Newton detested his stepfather and had some animosity toward his mother for marrying him: “Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them.” Mary, Benjamin, and Hannah were the three children of Newton’s mother’s second marriage.
Isaac Newton Christian beliefs
Despite coming from an Anglican background, historian Stephen Snobelen called Isaac Newton a heretic since he had adopted unconventional beliefs by the time he was in his thirties.
Isaac Newton considered worshiping Jesus Christ as God to be idolatry, which he considered to be the primary sin. “Isaac Newton was a heretic,” Snobelen wrote in 1999. However, he never publicly acknowledged his private faith, which the orthodox would have considered highly radical. Scholars are still deciphering his own beliefs since he concealed them so effectively. According to Snobelen, Newton was most likely an anti-trinitarian, possibly an Arian, and at least a Socinian sympathiser (he bought and read at least eight Socinian books).
Isaac Newton theological writings
He began documenting his theological inquiry in notebooks by 1672, which he kept private and which have only been open to the public since 1972. The majority of Newton’s writings have never been published, and more than half of them dealt with theology and alchemy. His writings demonstrate a thorough understanding of early Church teachings and suggest that he supported Arius, who disagreed with the traditional understanding of the Trinity and lost the debate with Athanasius over the Creed. Isaac Newton “recognized Christ as a divine mediator between God and man, who was subordinate to the Father who created him.” Although prophesy piqued his curiosity, he believed that “the great apostasy was trinitarianism.”
Newton made an unsuccessful attempt to secure one of the two fellowships that did not require ordination. In 1675, he was granted a last-minute government dispensation that exempted him and all subsequent Lucasian chair holders.
Isaac Newton faith and science
Newton cautioned against exploiting his most famous discoveries—the laws of motion and universal gravitation—to see the universe as a simple machine, like a gigantic clock. He said, “So then gravity may put the planets into motion, but without the Divine Power it could never put them into such a circulating motion, as they have about the sun” .
He rejected the hylozoism implied by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza, although he did believe in a logically immanent cosmos. An active reason could and should understand the ordered and dynamically informed Universe. “I had an eye upon such Principles which might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity” when he wrote the Principia, he said in his correspondence.
He observed that “such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice”—a hint of design in the world system. However, Newton maintained that because of the gradual escalation of instabilities, divine intervention would ultimately be necessary to change the system. “God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move,” Leibniz mocked him for this. It appears that he lacked the vision to make it a continuous motion.
Isaac Newton Bible studies
Newton’s studies of the Bible and the early Church Fathers were notable in addition to his scientific reputation. Among his publications on textual criticism are the Apocalypse of St. John, An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture, and Observations concerning the Prophecies of Daniel. According to one conventionally recognized date, he put Jesus Christ’s execution on April 3, AD 33.
Relationship
Newton never got married, despite rumors that he was previously engaged. During Newton’s funeral, the French author and philosopher Voltaire, who was in London, claimed that Newton “was never sensible to any passion, was not subject to the common frailties of mankind, nor had any commerce with women—a circumstance which was assured me by the physician and surgeon who attended him in his last moments.”
Isaac Newton Quotes
- “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”
- “I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.”
- “What we know is a drop, what we don’t know is an ocean.”
- “In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence.”
- “Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.”
Works
Published in his lifetime
- De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas (1669, published 1711)
- Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671–75)
- De motu corporum in gyrum (1684)
- Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
- Scala graduum Caloris. Calorum Descriptiones & signa (1701)
- Opticks (1704)
- Reports as Master of the Mint (1701–1725)
- Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
Published posthumously
- De mundi systemate (The System of the World) (1728)
- Optical Lectures (1728)
- The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728)
- Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
- Method of Fluxions (1671, published 1736)
- An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
