Sir Isaac Newton: Taking a Step Forward

1040 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Contribution of Isaac Newton to science

The day Galileo had slipped from our world Sir Isaac Newton had life breathed into him. Sir Isaac Newton was born on December 25, 1642, at Woolsthorpe. Before he was born his father died, so he was brought up with the scent and presence of his mother, Hannah. Despite this at the age of three his mother married someone else and abandoned him in the care of his grandmother, devastating him and rocking his foundation. He received the basic local education, or elementary, until he was twelve, then he proceeded to attend the King's School in Grantham. In 1661, at the age of nineteen, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge and worked to obtain his Bachelors degree. He then decided to go work for his masters degree, the plague hit Europe in 1666 the University closed. The next eighteen months he spent learning in solitude at his manor. When the College reopens he quickly obtains his Masters. He later becomes a professor for this college for 27 years. During these times he brought to light optics, his discovery of calculus and gravitation. Having learned all this he contributed to the Enlightenment with his discoveries as well as influencing thinkers of the future.
An impressive feat Sir Isaac Newton accomplished was the evolution of optics. Every scientist since Aristotle had believed light to be a simple entity, but Newton thought otherwise through his studies and building telescopes. It was thought that, “The idea that visual perception involves a medium somehow relating the beheld to the beholder is as old as ancient Greece,” (Darrigol 117). Isaac Newton challenged old ideas after an experiment with a prism and how it refracted light, as he saw this happen in a telescope where he saw the rings of colors distorting the image. This lea...

... middle of paper ...

...one’s experiment. Even so, Newton grasped what many could not in his time, making him a great thinker and a revolutionary in the field of science.

Works Cited

Darrigol, Olivier. "The Analogy Between Light And Sound In The History Of Optics From The
Ancient Greeks To Isaac Newton. Part 1." Centaurus 52.2 (2010): 117-155. Academic
Search Complete. Web. 11 Apr. 2014.
Newton, Isaac, Andrew Motte, Florian Cajori, and R. T. Crawford. Sir Isaac Newton's
Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World. Berkeley:
University of California, 1975. Print.
"Newton's Three Laws of Motion." Newton's Three Laws of Motion. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr.
2014.
Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. New
York: Free, 2000. Print.
Edgar, Robert R. Civilizations past & Present. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2008. Print.

Show More
Related

  • Philosophiae Naturalis Principi Newton's Three Laws Of Motion

    992 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 1687, Newton published Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (also known as Principia). The Principia was the “climax of Newton's professional life” (“Sir Isaac Newton”, 370). This book contains not only information on gravity, but Newton’s Three Laws of Motion. The First Law states that an object in constant motion will remain in motion unless an outside force is applied. The Second Law states that an object accelerates when a force is applied to a mass and greater force is needed to accelerate an object with a larger mass. The Third Law states that for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. These laws were fundamental in explaining the elliptical orbits of planets, moons, and comets. They were also used to calculate

    Read More

  • Modernism And Stereoscopes

    1102 Words  | 3 Pages

    .... 'It is a moment when the visible escapes from the timeless incorporeal order of the camera obscura and becomes lodged in another apparatus, within the unstable physiology and temporality of the human body'. Crary further demonstrates the shift in vision's location from camera to body by examining the way in which it was reproduced in various optical devices invented during this same period, specifically the stereoscope, the kaleidoscope, the phenakistiscope, and the diorama. His examination is based on a provocative premise: 'There is a tendency to conflate all optical devices in the nineteenth century as equally implicated in a vague collective drive to higher and higher standards of verisimilitude' (110). According to Crary, such an approach tends to neglect entirely how some of these devices were expressions of what he calls 'nonveridical' models of perception.

    Read More

  • Isaac Newton: The 17th Century Scientific Revolution

    763 Words  | 2 Pages

    Isaac Newton was born on January 4th, 1643. Newton was an established analyst and math expert, and was considered as one of the skilled minds of the 17th century Scientific Revolution.With his discoveries in optics, movement and mathematics, Newton improved the ways of thinking/basic truths/rules of modern remedy. His father was a prosperous local farmer, with the name also, Isaac Newton, who happened to have passed away when Newton was only 3 months old.When Newton was born, he was very tiny and weak so the doctors suggested that he would not survive. Isaac lived to the age of 84 years old. (Bio.com)Newton’s mother, Hannah Ayscough Newton, left Isaac with his maternal grandmother, because she left him for a man named Barnabas Smith, whom she married and lived her life with.This experience left Newton, broken-hearted, but he did not want to give up; no not at all, he kept leaning towards his interest, and drooling over his magnificent work.

    Read More

  • Newton's Negative Neglect

    1046 Words  | 3 Pages

    Isaac Newton had a tragic and unfortunate life ever since he was born. Three months prior to Newton’s birth, his father died. Then, when Newton was three years old, his mother left him with her parents in order to remarry to a wealthy rector, named Barnabas Smith. A few years later, his mother returned with three more children, and brought Newton back home to live with her and their new family. Newton went to school for next next couple years, until age fourteen, when he was told to drop out of school to assist his mother around the house and on the farm. It turned out Newton was not of any help around the house nor farm, because he was constantly busy reading. His mother then advised him to return to school (“Isaac Newton;” Gleick). After said events, his mother's second husband, Barnabas Smith dies as well. His mother then fled again, completely neglecting Newton's parental needs. Combination of all these events caused Newton to be on a constant emotional and physical edge, often crying and engaging in disputes and fights in school (“Sir Isaac Newton;” Hatch).

    Read More

  • Newton and Tje Information Order

    965 Words  | 2 Pages

    It is very hard and nearly impossible to find someone that had contributed to world’s science as much as Isaac Newton did. His works set the basis for modern world physics and his main work that was published in “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy” is considered one of the most significant books that the world has seen. Newton was without doubt one of the most influential scientists in modern times and he is one of the examples of the scientific enlightenment that occurred in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The evidence that support and served Newton has been collected by scientists and astronomers from different parts of the world. Newton’s work and contribution to the world wouldn’t be possible without the data that has been collected miles from his office in Cambridge. The crossing of ideas as part of the transporting world and the beginning of globally connected society had a major influence on the success of Newton’s Principia. Using Simon Schaffer’s article “Newton on the Beach: The Information Order of Principia Mathematica” and Roger Cotes’s “Preface to Newton’s Principia Mathematica” I will try to show how these crossings of ideas as part of a more globalized world were important aspect in the creation of this enlightened period.

    Read More

  • Sir Isaac Newton's Three Laws Of Motion

    1051 Words  | 3 Pages

    It was once stated, “No one knows what the future holds. That’s why its potential is infinite.” No one would have ever believed that space exploration would be possible until Sir Isaac Newton came along and conducted experiments while developing his profound theories. An English physicist and mathematician, Newton was an instrumental figure during the scientific revolution of the 17th century. Not only was Newton known for being the founder of differential and integral calculus, but he was also given credit for other contributions to mathematics including the generalized binomial theorem and his method of finding approximations successively closer to the root(s) of a function (Mastin, 2010). As the result of Newton’s three laws of motion and

    Read More

  • The Union of Science and Religion through Isaac Newton

    1597 Words  | 4 Pages

    Although history most reveres Newton as a scientific genius, his theological knowledge was also outstanding. John Locke wrote, "Mr. Newton is a very valuable man, not only for his wonderful skill in mathematics, but in divinity too, and his great knowledge of the Scriptures, wherein I know few equals . . .."2 Newton s...

    Read More

  • Calculus, Leibniz and Newton

    2305 Words  | 5 Pages

    Newton, Isaac. The Correspondence of Isaac Newton. Vol. 7, 1718-1727. Edited by A. Rupert Hall and Laura Tilling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for the Royal Society, 1977.

    Read More

  • Thomas Young

    740 Words  | 2 Pages

    During the 17th and 18th centuries, the nature of light was one of the mo...

    Read More

  • The Duality of Light and Matter

    1210 Words  | 3 Pages

    Ekspong, G. (n.d.). The dual nature of light as reflected in the Nobel archives. In Nobelprize. Retrieved from http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/articles/ekspong/

    Read More

  • Galileo And The Telescope

    391 Words  | 1 Pages

    Galileo was not the person who invented the telescope, but he was the first one to use the telescope to study the heavens. He made many observations using the telescope that shocked the religious world. In this short essay, I will only focus on three observations and how an Aristotlean reacts to it. These observations played a very important role on the development of astronomy.

    Read More

  • The Role of Arab Scientists in Perserving Greek Science and Knowledge

    769 Words  | 2 Pages

    ... made use of the geometry that was borrowed to prove that vision takes place when rays of lights pass from objects to the eye.

    Read More

  • Quantum Physics : Quantum Mechanics

    1150 Words  | 3 Pages

    Then scientists shot just one light beam through, and it formed an interference pattern of lines. Baffling the scientists, they then shot one atom at a time through the slits, and in return the same results were observed. Giving the idea that light acts as waves, and as particles.... ... middle of paper ... ...

    Read More

  • Thomas Young

    1508 Words  | 4 Pages

    -Published his experiments on Sound and Light in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society

    Read More

  • Essay On Microscope

    1549 Words  | 4 Pages

    The telescope and the microscope both made of glass, amplified to see the heavens and the smallest micro-organism has led civilization out of the dark ages and allowed mankind to understand the human body, diseases, the solar system, and many other important discoveries. The importance of each of these incredible instruments cannot be explained in mere words. This paper has only touched the tip of the contributions made to mankind by brave men who using their instruments, advancing astronomy and medicine to unbelievable levels. As Victor Hugo, in Book 3 Chap. 3 of Les Miserables states, "Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the grander view?”

    Read More

More about Sir Isaac Newton: Taking a Step Forward

Open Document