Sir Isaac Newton was born on 25 December 1642 and is believed to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived. Newton was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer and theologian who worked on many practical experiments and laid the foundation for the principles of classical mechanics. He was one of the best minds of all time.
He was sent to The King’s School, an educational institution for boys in Grantham, Lincolnshire when he was 12. Biographer N. W. Chittenden remembers that the young Newton was not a good student in early years of his education. When he was 15, his mother was widowed for the second time and for financial reasons he was taken out of the school to manage a farm. He did not like the work and often neglected his duties, He instead took advantage of his market trips into Grantham to read and study. His deep interest persuaded his mother to send him back to school to complete his education.
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After schooling, Sir Isaac Newton entered the Trinity College at Cambridge in 1661 at the age of 16. He was more interested in carrying out his own research than following the professors. He transferred to Cambridge University.
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His contribution to mathematics includes the invention of generalized binomial theorem which later developed into the mathematical theory of “Calculus”. He gave philosophies for theories of planetary motion and gravity.
Many principles of physics have the great research and work of Newton behind them. He even laid foundations for the theory of light and color. He was more inspired by modern minds like Descartes, Galileo, John Wallis and Johann Kepler. In 1666 Newton performed a number of experiments on composition of light It was Newton who proved that prisms separate colors.
His invention of the first refracting telescope was based on the same theory that he developed that a prism decomposes the white light into many colors from the visible spectrum. He was also offered membership of Royal Society in 1671, for his interest in optical works and got great reputation.
Newton hesitated in publicizing his mathematical studies as he feared opposition. It was in 1687 that his first edition of his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (later translated in 1825 as The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) was published. He described the universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, derived from Kepler’s Laws in his book.
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Newton‘s book titled “Principia” is one of the most scientific books ever written. It is divided into three parts. Part I of which describes the laws of motion that Newton gave.
Here are the 3 laws of motion:
1. Everything continues to be in its state of rest, unless it is compelled to change the state by inertia.
2. The change in motion is proportional to the force impressed and is made in the direction of the straight line in which that force is impressed.
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3. To every action there is always an opposed reaction.
The book Part II is about:
“How these motions are performed in free space without vortices.” The final one Part III extended his 3 laws of motion to the frame of the world demonstrating “that there is a power of gravity tending to all bodies, proportional to the several quantities of matter of which they contain”. Through his research and practical examples, he proved that all motions of objects on this earth as well as other celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws.
Newton was a serious student of Bible and also dedicated his theological works to God. He never married and is known to be liberal towards the poor all his life. Newton in popular imagination exists as the one to establish laws of gravity by the example of an apple falling down the tree.
Newton died in March 1727. Throughout his career Newton conducted other researches with the same passion that he pursued in science and theology he is known as the “father of Astronomy “amongst the scientists in the world today.
Newton had quoted once,
“Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done.”