He was the epitome of the absent-minded professor. In one of Newton's most famous replies, he wrote "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Now in his thirties, Newton had long, unkempt prematurely gray hair, and he stayed in his chamber for days on end, working by candlelight at night. particle), particularly with Robert Hooke. He maintained a vigorous debate about the nature of light (wave vs. In 1675, Newton finally traveled into London to meet some of the scientists he had only met via written correspondence. These letters to the Royal Society became his first published works and began some vigorous written debates published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society which served to make others aware of the acute mind that Newton possessed. He joined the Royal Society, but limited his interactions to written correspondence for three years. Based on Barrow's recommendation, Newton was invited to join the Royal Society as a Fellow. Newton's friend Isaac Barrow took Newton's telescope to the Royal Society of London, a group of learned men formed in 1662. His telescope was much shorter than the refractive lens telescopes created previously, yet just as powerful. Newton carefully ground glass into a reflecting lens and invented the first reflecting telescope. Newton's innovation with regard to telescopes capitalized on his knowledge of optics. Newton followed the tradition of early Renaissance scholars like Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler in using and advancing the development of telescopes. Newton was inspired by a more senior scientist, Robert Hooke, but Hooke was to become Newton's rival. He even inserted a bodkin (a large blunt needle) into his eye socket to deform his eyeball as an experiment to test the influence of the shape of his eyeball on eyesight. Newton began experimenting with light and studying optics. Newton wrote the following passage about his chastity: "The way to chastity is not to struggle directly with incontinent thoughts but to avert the thoughts by some imployment, or by reading, or meditating on other things.…” Newton followed this vow for the rest of his life, and likely died a virgin. As a fellow, he was to adopt a life of chastity and was not permitted to marry. In 1667, Newton returned to Cambridge at the age of 24, but at a higher status, as a fellow. London also suffered a great fire in 1666, so his self-imposed isolation was fortuitous. These notes were the foundation of Newton's important later works. Isaac build a study in his family house and proceeded to fill a thousand page notebook with his drawings, writings, mathematical derivations and notes to himself. In 1665, an outbreak of the bubonic plague struck London and Newton was summoned home by his mother to avoid this outbreak. Newton first studied Aristotle and then he purposefully set aside these works and inscribed a quote from Aristotle that read " Plato is my friend, but truth my greater friend." He embarked on what was to become a lifelong quest to develop his own unique natural philosophy of the world. Isaac also adopted a standing desk and became renowned for his eccentric habits. He had a limited budget and a limited amount of paper so he developed a shorthand writing style with tiny text which he used throughout his career. Isaac was originally enrolled as a ' subsizar', which meant that he served as a valet to earn his way. When Isaac was 19, he was rescued by his uncle and a former teacher who convinced his mother to send him to Trinity College at Cambridge University in 1661 where he ended up spending his next 35 years, apart from being exiled to avoid an outbreak of the bubonic plague for a couple of years. He returned home at his mother's request and attempted farming for a couple of years, but he neither enjoyed nor excelled at farming.Ī 1689 portrait of Isaac Newton by Godfrey Kneller. Isaac was sent to a school in Grantham, 8 miles away, and he boarded there until he turned 16 years old. When Isaac was ten years old, his step-father died and his mother moved back with three younger half-siblings. His father died before he was born and his mother remarried when Isaac was three years old and she left him to be cared for by his maternal grandmother. He was born in a modest farmhouse in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, just north of London. Isaac Newton was born in 1642, the same year that Galileo Galilei died. ‘ Scientists who made a difference’ series
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |