Newton proposed his own version of biblical chronology, leaving behind a significant number of manuscripts on these issues. In addition, he wrote a commentary on the Apocalypse. Newton's theological manuscripts are now kept in Jerusalem, in the National Library.
Amazing coincidences
The gravitational constant is 6.67∙10 -11 N∙m 2 /kg 2 and its order of numbers coincides with the time when an apple supposedly fell on Newton around 1666 - 1667.
Quotes
- "If I saw further than others, it was because I stood on the shoulders of giants."
- “How did these discrepancies come together?”
- "Genius is the patience of thought concentrated in a certain direction."
- “I don’t invent hypotheses.”
- “Be courageous and loyal to the laws, and then the melon will be able to suffer defeats.”
- “I look upon myself as a child who, playing on the seashore, found a few smoother pebbles and more colorful shells than others could manage, while the immeasurable ocean of truth lay unexplored before my eyes.” Isaac Newton
There is probably not a single person in the world who does not know who Isaac Newton is. One of the world's most outstanding scientists, who made discoveries in several fields of science at once, giving rise to scientific directions in mathematics, optics, astronomy, one of the founding fathers classical physics. So, who is Isaac Newton? Today his short biography and his discoveries are widely known.
In contact with
The story of a scientist and explorer
One could say about him in the words of the poet Nikolai Tikhonov: “I should make nails out of these people. There couldn’t be any stronger nails in the world.” Born before his due date, very small and weak, he lived 84 years in perfect health, until a ripe old age, devoting wholeheartedly to the development of science and engaging in government affairs. Throughout his life, the scientist adhered to strong moral principles, was a model of honesty, and did not strive for publicity and fame. Even the will of King James II did not break him.
Childhood
The scientist considered his birth on the eve of Catholic Christmas to be a special sign of providence. After all, he managed to make his greatest discoveries. Like a new star of Bethlehem, he illuminated many directions in which science subsequently developed. Many discoveries have been made thanks to the planned they are on their way.
Newton's father, who seemed an eccentric and strange man to his contemporaries, never found out about the birth of his son. A successful farmer and good owner, who lived only a few months before the birth of his son, left the family a significant farm and money.
From his youth, having had a tender affection for his mother all his life, Isaac could not forgive her decision to leave him in the care of his grandparents after she married for the second time. The autobiography, compiled by him as a teenager, tells of outbursts of despair and children's plans for revenge against his mother and stepfather. He could only trust paper with the story of his emotional experiences; in life, the famous scientist was closed, had no close friends and was never married.
At the age of 12 he was sent to Grantham School. His closed and unsociable disposition, as well as his internal focus, turned his peers against him. From childhood, the future scientist preferred studying the natural sciences to boyish pranks. He read a lot, was interested in designing mechanical toys, and solving mathematical problems. A conflict situation with classmates prompted the proud Newton to become best student at school.
Studying at Cambridge
Having been widowed, Newton's mother really hoped that her 16-year-old son would begin to help her with farming. But through the joint efforts of the school teacher, the boy's uncle and especially Humphrey Babington, a member of Trinity College, she was able to convince her of the need for further education. In 1661, Newton took an exam in Latin and enters Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. It was in this institution that for 30 years he studied science, conducted experiments and made world discoveries.
Instead of paying for his studies at the college, where the young man first lived as a student-sizer, he had to carry out some errands for richer students and other economic work around the university. Just 3 years later, in 1664, Newton passed the exams with honors and received an advanced student category, as well as the right not only to free education, but also to a scholarship.
His studies fascinated and inspired him so much that, according to the recollections of his classmates, he could forget about sleep and food. Still engaged in mechanics and designed various things and tools, was interested in mathematical calculations, astronomical observations, research in optics, philosophy, even music theory and history.
Deciding to devote his years of life to science, he gives up love and plans to start a family. The young pupil of the pharmacist Clark, with whom he lived during his school years, also did not marry and retained a tender memory of Newton throughout her life.
First steps in scientific activity
The year 1664 was an inspiring year for the young scientist. He compiles a “Questionnaire” of 45 scientific problems and sets himself the goal of solving them all.
Thanks to the lectures of the famous mathematician I. Barrow, Newton made his first discovery of the binomial expansion, which allowed him to subsequently develop the method of differential calculus, which is used today in higher mathematics. He passes the exam successfully and receives a bachelor's degree.
Even the plague epidemic of 1665 - 1667 could not stop this inquisitive mind and force him to sit idle. During the rampant illness, Newton went home, where he continued to engage in scientific activities. Here, in the privacy of home, he does most of his great discoveries:
- establishes basic methods of types of calculus - integral and differential;
- deduces the theory of color and gives rise to the development of optical science;
- finds a method for finding roots of quadratic equations;
- derives a formula for the expansion of an arbitrary natural power of a binomial.
Important! The famous apple tree, the observations of which helped in the discovery, was preserved as a memorial bench for the scientist.
Major discoveries
Isaac Newton a brief description of his activities. He was not just a genius, a famous scientist, but a person with diverse interests in many areas of science and technology. What is he famous for and what did he discover? A keen mathematician and physicist, he was equally well versed in both the exact sciences and the humanities. Economics, alchemy, philosophy, music and history - in all these areas the genius of his talent worked. Here is just a brief description of the great discoveries of Isaac Newton:
- developed a theory of the movement of celestial bodies - determined that the planets revolve around;
- formulated three important laws of mechanics;
- developed the theory of light and color shades;
- built the world's first mirror;
- discovered the Law of Gravity, thanks to which he became famous.
According to existing legend, Newton discovered the famous law while observing apples falling from an apple tree in his garden. Biographer of the famous scientist William Stukeley describes this moment in a book dedicated to the memories of Newton, which was published in 1752. According to Stukeley, it was an apple falling from a tree that gave him the idea of attraction of cosmic bodies and gravity.
“Why do apples fall perpendicular to the ground?” - thought Newton and, reflecting, deduced a new law. In the garden of the University of Cambridge, students revere and carefully care for a tree considered to be a descendant of the same “Newton’s apple tree”.
The falling of the apple served only as an impetus for the famous discovery. Newton went to him for many years, studying the works Galileo, Bullialda, Hooke, other astronomers and physicists. The scientist considered Keller’s Third Law to be another impulse. True, he composed the modern interpretation of the Law of Universal Gravitation somewhat later, when he studied the laws of mechanics.
Other scientific developments
The basis of classical mechanics is Newton’s Laws, the most important in the field of mechanics, which were formulated in a scientific work on mathematics and the principles of philosophy, published in 1687:
- the first Law of uniform motion in a straight line if no other forces act on the body;
- the second Law is , which in differential form describes the influence of acting forces on acceleration;
- the third Law is about the force of interaction between two bodies at a certain distance.
Currently these Newton's laws are an axiom.
Astronomy
At the end of 1669, the scientist received one of the most prestigious positions in the world at Trinity College, the named Lucasian professor of mathematics and optics. In addition to a £100 salary, bonuses and scholarships, there is the opportunity to devote more time own scientific research activities. Doing experiments in optics and the theory of light, Newton creates his first reflecting telescope.
Important! The improved telescope became the main instrument for astronomers and navigators of the time. With its help, the planet Uranus was discovered and other galaxies were discovered.
Studying the celestial bodies through his reflector, the scientist developed a theory of celestial bodies and determined the movement of planets around the Sun. Using the calculations of my reflector and applying a scientific approach to Bible study, I made my own message about the end of the world. According to his calculations, this event will take place in 2060.
Government activities
1696 The great scientist holds the position of keeper of the Mint and moved to London, where he lived until 1726. Having carried out financial accounting and established order in the documentation, he becomes Montagu's co-author on carrying out monetary reform.
During the period of his activity, a branch network of the Mint was created, and the production of silver coins increased several times. Newton introduces technology, allowing you to get rid of counterfeiters.
1699 Becomes manager of the Mint. In this post he continues to fight counterfeiters. His actions as manager were as brilliant as during his scientific career. Thanks to the reforms carried out in England economic crisis was averted.
1698 A report on Newton's economic reform was presented. While in England, Tsar Peter met with the famous professor three times. In 1700, a monetary reform similar to the English one was carried out in Russia.
1689 -1690. He was a representative of Cambridge University in the country's parliament. From 1703 to 1725 he served as President of the Royal Society.
Attention! In 1705, Queen Anne of Great Britain knighted Isaac Newton. This was the only time in English history that knighthood was awarded for scientific achievements.
Biography of Newton, his discoveries
The life of the great scientist Isaac Newton
Completion of life's journey
The last months of his life the professor lived in Kensington. The great scientist died on March 20, 1727. He died in his sleep and was buried on the grounds of Westminster Abbey in the tomb of the kings and most prominent people of England. All the townspeople came to say goodbye to their famous contemporary. The funeral procession was led by the Lord Chancellor himself, followed in the funeral procession by British ministers.
Newton was born into a farmer's family, but he was lucky with good friends and was able to escape from rural life into a scientific environment. Thanks to this, a great scientist appeared who was able to discover more than one law of physics and astronomy and formulate many important theories in the branches of mathematics and physics.
Family and childhood
Isaac was the son of a farmer from Woolsthorpe. His father was from poor peasants who, by chance, acquired land and thanks to this succeeded. But his father did not live to see Isaac's birth - and died a few weeks before. The boy was named after him.
When Newton was three years old, his mother remarried - to a wealthy farmer almost three times her age. After the birth of three more children in a new marriage, his mother's brother, William Ayscough, began to study Isaac. But Uncle Newton could not give at least any education, so the boy was left to his own devices - he played with mechanical toys he made with his own hands, and besides, he was a little withdrawn.
Isaac's mother's new husband lived with her for only seven years and died. Half of the inheritance went to the widow, and she immediately transferred everything to Isaac. Despite the fact that the mother returned home, she paid almost no attention to the boy, since the younger children demanded him even more, and she had no assistants.
At the age of twelve, Newton went to school in the neighboring town of Grantham. To avoid having to travel several miles home every day, he was placed in the house of a local pharmacist, Mr. Clarke. At school, the boy “blossomed”: he greedily grasped new knowledge, the teachers were delighted with his intelligence and abilities. But after four years, the mother needed an assistant and she decided that her 16-year-old son would be able to handle the farm.
But even after returning home, Isaac is in no hurry to solve economic problems, but reads books, writes poetry and continues to invent various mechanisms. Therefore, friends turned to his mother to return the guy to school. Among them was a teacher at Trinity College, an acquaintance of the same pharmacist with whom Isaac lived during his studies. Together, Newton went to enroll in Cambridge.
University, plague and discovery
In 1661, the guy successfully passed the Latin exam, and he was enrolled in the College of the Holy Trinity at the University of Cambridge as a student who, instead of paying for his studies, carries out various assignments and works for the benefit of his alma mater.
Since life in England in those years was very difficult, things were not the best in Cambridge. Biographers agree that it was the years in college that strengthened the scientist’s character and his desire to get to the essence of the subject through his own efforts. Three years later he had already achieved a scholarship.
In 1664, Isaac Barrow became one of Newton's teachers, who instilled in him a love of mathematics. During those years, Newton made his first discovery in mathematics, now known as Newton's binomial.
A few months later, studies at Cambridge were stopped due to the plague epidemic that was spreading in England. Newton returned home, where he continued his scientific work. It was in those years that he began to develop the law, which has since received the name Newton-Leibniz; in his home, he discovered that white color is nothing more than a mixture of all colors, and called the phenomenon “spectrum.” It was then that he discovered his famous law of universal gravitation.
What was a feature of Newton's character, and was not very useful for science, was his excessive modesty. He published some of his research only 20-30 years after their discoveries. Some were found three centuries after his death.
In 1667, Newton returned to college, and a year later he became a master and was invited to work as a teacher. But Isaac didn’t really like lecturing, and he wasn’t particularly popular among his students.
In 1669, various mathematicians began to publish their own versions of infinite series expansions. Despite the fact that Newton developed his theory on this topic many years ago, he never published it anywhere. Again, out of modesty. But his former teacher, and now friend Barrow, persuaded Isaac. And he wrote “Analysis using equations with an infinite number of terms,” where he briefly and essentially outlined his discoveries. And although Newton asked not to give his name, Barrow could not resist. This is how scientists around the world first learned about Newton.
In the same year he takes over from Barrow and becomes professor of mathematics and optics at Trinity College. And since Barrow left him his laboratory, Isaac is interested in alchemy and conducts many experiments on this topic. But he did not abandon research with light. So, he developed his first reflecting telescope, which gave a magnification of 40 times. The king's court became interested in the new development, and after its presentation to scientists, the mechanism was assessed as revolutionary and very necessary, especially for sailors. And Newton was admitted to the Royal Scientific Society in 1672. But after the first controversy about the spectrum, Isaac decided to leave the organization - he was tired of disputes and discussions, he was used to working alone and without unnecessary fuss. He was barely persuaded to remain at the Royal Society, but the scientist’s contacts with them became minimal.
The birth of physics as a science
In 1684-1686, Newton wrote his first great printed work, “The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.” He was persuaded to publish it by another scientist, Edmond Halley, who first proposed developing a formula for elliptical motion in the orbit of planets, using the formula of the law of gravity. And then it turned out that Newton had already decided everything long ago. Halley did not back down until he extracted a promise from Isaac to publish the work, and he agreed.
It took two years to write it, Halley himself agreed to finance the publication, and in 1686 it finally saw the world.
In this book, the scientist first used the concepts of “external force”, “mass” and “momentum”. Newton gave three basic laws of mechanics and drew conclusions from Kepler's laws.
The first edition of 300 copies was sold out in four years, which by the standards of that time was a triumph. In total, the book was republished three times during the scientist’s lifetime.
Recognition and success
In 1689 Newton was elected Member of Parliament at the University of Cambridge. A year later it is sorted out a second time.
In 1696, thanks to the assistance of his former student, and now President of the Royal Society and Chancellor of the Exchequer Montagu, Newton became keeper of the Mint, for which he moved to London. Together they put the affairs of the Mint in order and carry out monetary reform with the reminting of coins.
In 1699, the Newtonian system of the world began to be taught in his native Cambridge, and five years later the same course of lectures appeared in Oxford.
He was also accepted into the Paris Scientific Club, making Newton an honorary foreign member of the society.
Last years and death
In 1704, Newton published his work On Optics, and a year later Queen Anne knighted him.
The last years of Newton's life were spent reprinting the Principia and preparing updates for subsequent editions. In addition, he wrote “Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms.”
In 1725, his health seriously deteriorated and he moved from noisy London to Kensington. He died there, in his sleep. His body was buried in Westminster Abbey.
- Newton's knighthood was the first time in English history that a knighthood had been awarded for scientific merit. Newton acquired his own coat of arms and a not very reliable pedigree.
- Towards the end of his life, Newton quarreled with Leibniz, which had a detrimental effect on British and European science in particular - many discoveries were not made because of these quarrels.
- The unit of force in the International System of Units (SI) was named after Newton.
- The legend of Newton's apple spread widely thanks to Voltaire.
NEWTON, ISAAC(Newton, Isaac) (1643–1727) - English mathematician, physicist, alchemist and historian, who laid the foundations of mathematical analysis, rational mechanics and all mathematical science, and also made a fundamental contribution to the development of physical optics.
Isaac (in English his name is pronounced Isaac) was born in the town of Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire on Christmas Day, December 25, 1642 (January 4, 1643 in a new style) after the death of his father. Newton's childhood was spent in conditions of material prosperity, but was deprived of family warmth. The mother soon remarried - to an already middle-aged priest from a neighboring town - and moved in with him, leaving her son with his grandmother in Woolsthorpe. Over the next years, the stepfather had virtually no contact with his stepson. It is noteworthy that almost ten years after the death of his stepfather, nineteen-year-old Newton included in the confession he prepared for St. Day. Trinity has a long list of their sins and childhood threats to their stepfather and mother to burn down their house. Some modern researchers explain Newton's painful unsociability and bileness, which later manifested itself in his relationships with others, as a mental breakdown in childhood.
Newton received his primary education at the surrounding village schools, and then at the Grammar School, where he studied mainly Latin and the Bible. Due to the revealed abilities of her son, the mother abandoned her intention to make her son a farmer. In 1661 Newton entered St. College. Trinity (Trinity College) of the University of Cambridge and three years later received - thanks to the mysterious favor of fate that accompanied him throughout his life - one of 62 scholarships that entitled him to subsequent admission to Fellows of the college.
The early period of Newton's amazing creative activity occurred during his student years during the terrible plague years of 1665 and 1666, when classes at Cambridge were partially suspended. Newton spent a significant part of this time in the village. These years included the emergence of fundamental ideas from Newton, who had virtually no mathematical training before entering the university, that formed the basis for most of his subsequent great discoveries - from elements of series theory (including Newton's binomial) and mathematical analysis to new approaches in physical optics and dynamics, including the calculation of centrifugal force and the emergence of at least a guess about the law of universal gravitation.
In 1667 Newton became a bachelor and junior fellow of the college, and the following year - master and senior fellow of Trinity College. Finally, in the fall of 1669, he received one of the eight privileged royal chairs of Cambridge - the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics, inherited by him from Isaac (Isaac) Barrow, who left it.
According to the college's charter, its members were required to take the priesthood. This also awaited Newton. But by this time he had fallen into the most terrible heresy for a true Christian: a member of the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity doubted the fundamental dogma of the doctrine of the Trinity of God. Newton faced the grim prospect of leaving Cambridge. Even the king could not exempt a Trinity College member from ordination. But it was in his power to allow an exception for a professor who occupied the royal chair, and such an exception for the Lucasian chair (formally not for Newton) was legalized in 1675. Thus, the last obstacle to Newton’s career at the university was miraculously removed. He acquired a firm position without being burdened with almost any responsibilities. Newton's overly complex lectures were not popular with students, and in subsequent years the professor sometimes found no listeners in the audience.
The late 1660s and early 1670s saw Newton's manufacture of a reflecting telescope, for which he was elected to the Royal Society of London (1672). In the same year, he presented to the Society his research on a new theory of light and colors, which caused a heated debate with Robert Hooke (Newton’s pathological fear of public discussions, which developed with age, led, in particular, to the fact that he published Optics only 30 years later, after Hooke’s death). Newton owns ideas about monochromatic light rays and the periodicity of their properties, substantiated by the finest experiments, that underlie physical optics.
In those same years, Newton was developing the foundations of mathematical analysis, which became widely known from the correspondence of European scientists, although Newton himself did not publish a single line on this subject: Newton’s first publication on the foundations of analysis was published only in 1704, and a more complete manual - posthumously (1736).
Ten years later than Newton, G.V. Leibniz also came to the general ideas of mathematical analysis, and began publishing his works in this field in 1684. It should be noted that the subsequently generally accepted Leibniz notation system was more practical than Newton’s “method of fluxions”, becoming widespread in continental Western Europe already in the 1690s.
However, as it finally became clear only in the 20th century, the center of gravity of Newton’s interests lay in alchemy in the 1670–1680s. He was actively interested in metal transmutation and gold from the early 1670s.
Newton's seemingly monotonous life in Cambridge was shrouded in mystery. Perhaps the only serious disruption to its rhythm was the two and a half years devoted in the mid-1680s to writing Mathematical principles of natural philosophy(1687), which laid the foundation not only for rational mechanics, but also for the entire mathematical science. During this short period, Newton showed superhuman activity, concentrating on creating Began all the creative potential of the genius bestowed upon him. Beginnings contained the laws of dynamics, the law of universal gravitation with effective applications to the movement of celestial bodies, the origins of the study of the movement and resistance of liquids and gases, including acoustics. This work has remained for over three centuries the most remarkable creation of human genius.
History of creation Began remarkable. In the 1660s, Hooke also thought about the problem of universal gravitation. In 1674, he published his insightful ideas about the structure of the solar system, the movement of the planets in which consists of uniform rectilinear motion and motion under the influence of universal mutual attraction between bodies. Hooke soon became secretary of the Royal Society and in the late autumn of 1679, having consigned his previous disputes to oblivion, he invited Newton to speak about the laws of motion of bodies and, in particular, about the idea that “the celestial movements of the planets consist of direct tangential motion and motion due to attraction to the central body.” . Three days later, Newton confirmed to Hooke the receipt of his letter, but avoided giving a detailed answer under false pretexts. However, Newton made a rash statement, noting that bodies are deflected to the east when falling on Earth and move in a spiral converging towards its center. The triumphant Hooke respectfully pointed out to Newton that bodies do not fall in a spiral at all, but along some kind of ellipsoidal curve. Hooke then added that bodies on the rotating Earth fall not strictly to the east, but to the southeast. Newton responded with a letter that was striking for his irreconcilable character: “I agree with you,” he wrote, “that a body at our latitude will fall more to the south than to the east... And also with the fact that if we assume its gravity to be uniform, then it will not will descend in a spiral to the very center, but will spin with alternate rise and fall... But... the body will not describe an ellipsoidal curve.” According to Newton, the body will then describe a trajectory like a kind of trefoil, like an elliptical orbit with a rotating line of apses. Hooke, in his next letter, objected to Newton, pointing out that the apses of the orbit of a falling body would not shift. Newton did not answer him, but Hooke, using another pretext, added in his last letter from this cycle: “Now it remains to find out the properties of a curved line... caused by a central attractive force, under the influence of which the speed of evasion from a tangent or uniform rectilinear motion on all distances are inversely proportional to the squares of the distance. And I have no doubt that with the help of your wonderful method you will easily establish what kind of curve this should be and what its properties are...”
We don’t know exactly what happened and in what order over the next four years. Hooke's diaries over the years (as well as many of his other manuscripts) subsequently strangely disappeared, and Newton almost never left his laboratory. Frustrated by his oversight, Newton, of course, had to immediately take up the analysis of the problem clearly formulated by Hooke and, probably, soon received his main fundamental results, proving, in particular, the existence of central forces subject to the law of areas and the ellipticity of planetary orbits when the center of gravity is found in one of their tricks. At this point, Newton apparently considered the development of the principles he developed later in Beginnings the system of the world was complete for himself and calmed down on this.
At the beginning of 1684 in London, a historic meeting took place between Robert Hooke and the future royal astronomer Edmund Halley (who is usually called Halley in Russian) and the royal architect Christopher Wren, at which the interlocutors discussed the law of attraction ~ 1/ R 2 and set the task of deducing the ellipticity of orbits from the law of attraction. In August of that year, Halley visited Newton and asked him what he thought about this problem. In response, Newton said that he already had proof of the ellipticity of orbits, and promised to find his calculations.
Further events developed from cinematography to the 17th century. speed. At the end of 1684, Newton sent the first application text of an essay on the laws of motion to the Royal Society of London. Under pressure from Halley, he began to write a large treatise. He worked with all the passion and dedication of a genius, and in the end Beginnings were written in an amazingly short time - from one and a half to two and a half years. In the spring of 1686 Newton presented the text of the first book to London Began, which contained the formulation of the laws of motion, the doctrine of central forces in connection with the law of areas and the solution of various problems about motion under the influence of central forces, including motion along precessing orbits. In his presentation, he does not even mention the mathematical analysis he created and uses only the theory of limits he developed and the classical geometric methods of the ancients. No mention of the solar system, book one Began also does not contain. The Royal Society, which greeted Newton's work with enthusiasm, was, however, unable to finance its publication: printing Began Halley himself took over. Fearing controversy, Newton changed his mind about publishing a third book. Began, dedicated to the mathematical description of the Solar System. Still, Halley's diplomacy won. In March 1687, Newton sent to London the text of the second book, which expounded the doctrine of hydro-aerodynamic resistance of moving bodies and was silently directed against Descartes’ theory of vortices, and on April 4 Halley received the final third book Began– about the system of the world. On July 5, 1687, printing of the entire work was completed. The pace at which Halley carried out the publication Began three hundred years ago, can well be set as an example for modern publishing houses. Typesetting (from manuscript!), proofreading and printing of the second and third books Began, constituting slightly more than half of the entire composition, took exactly four months.
In preparation Began To print, Halley tried to convince Newton of the need to somehow note Hooke's role in establishing the law of universal gravitation. However, Newton limited himself to only a very ambiguous mention of Hooke, trying with his remark to also drive a wedge between Hooke, Halley and Wren.
Newton's point of view on the role of mathematical proofs in discovery is, in general, very peculiar, at least when it comes to his own priority. Thus, Newton not only did not recognize Hooke’s merits in the formulation of the law of universal gravitation and the formulation of the problem of planetary motion, but he believed that those two sentences that we call Kepler’s first two laws belonged to him - Newton, since it was he who received these laws as consequences from mathematical theory. Newton left only his third law to Kepler, which was only mentioned as Kepler’s law in Beginnings.
Nowadays, we still have to recognize the prominent role of Hooke as Newton's predecessor in understanding the mechanics of the solar system. S.I. Vavilov formulated this idea in the following words: “Write Beginnings in the 17th century no one except Newton could, but it cannot be disputed that the program, plan Began was first sketched by Hooke."
Having completed the publication Began, Newton, apparently, again isolated himself in his (al)chemical laboratory. His final years at Cambridge in the 1690s were marred by particularly severe mental depression. Someone then surrounded Newton with care, preventing the widespread spread of rumors about his illness, and as a result, little is known about the actual state of affairs.
In the spring of 1696, Newton received the post of Warden (Warden) of the Mint and moved from Cambridge to London. Here Newton immediately became intensively involved in organizational and administrative activities; under his leadership, in 1696–1698, enormous work was carried out to re-mint all English coins. In 1700 he was appointed to the highly paid position of Director (Master) of the Mint, which he held until his death. In the spring of 1703, Robert Hooke, an irreconcilable opponent and antipode of Newton, died. Hooke's death gave Newton complete freedom in the Royal Society of London, and at the next annual meeting, Newton was elected its president, occupying this chair for a quarter of a century.
In London he approached the court. In 1705, Queen Anne elevated him to the rank of knighthood. Soon Sir Isaac Newton became the generally recognized national pride of England. Discussion of the advantages of his philosophical system over Cartesian and his priority in relation to Leibniz in the discovery of infinitesimal calculus became an indispensable element of conversation in educated society.
In the last years of his life, Newton himself devoted a lot of time to theology and ancient and biblical history.
He died on March 31, 1727, a bachelor at the age of 85, in his country house, secretly refusing the sacrament and leaving a very significant fortune. A week later, his ashes were solemnly placed in a place of honor in Westminster Abbey.
A relatively complete collection of Newton's works was published in London in five volumes (1779–1785). However, his works and manuscripts began to be studied more deeply only in the mid-20th century, when 7 volumes of his correspondence were published ( Correspondence, 1959–1977) and 8 volumes of mathematical manuscripts ( Mathematical Papers, 1967–1981). Published in Russian Mathematical principles of natural philosophy Newton (first edition - 1915/1916, last - 1989), his Optics(1927) and Lectures on optics(1945), selected Mathematical work(1937) and Notes on the book« Prophet Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. Joanna"(1916).
Gleb Mikhailov
Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1642 in Woolsthorpe, England. The boy was born in a small village into the family of a small farmer who died three months before the birth of his son. The boy was born prematurely and turned out to be sickly, so they did not dare to baptize him for a long time. And yet he survived, was baptized, and was named Isaac in memory of his father. Newton considered the fact of being born on Christmas a special sign of fate. Despite poor health in infancy, he lived eighty-four years.
When the child was three years old, his mother remarried and left, leaving him in the care of his grandmother. Newton grew up unsociable and prone to daydreaming. He was attracted to poetry and painting. Away from his peers, he made paper kites, invented a windmill, a water clock, and a pedal carriage.
Interest in technology forced Newton to think about natural phenomena and study mathematics in depth. After serious preparation, Isaac Newton entered Cambridge in 1660 as a Subsizzfr, the so-called poor students who were obliged to serve members of the college, which could not but burden Newton.
In six years, Isaac Newton completed all the college degrees and prepared all his further great discoveries. In 1665, Newton became a Master of Arts. In the same year, when the plague epidemic was raging in England, he decided to temporarily settle in Woolsthorpe.
It was there that the scientist began to actively study optics; the search for ways to eliminate chromatic aberration in lens telescopes led Newton to research into what is now called dispersion, that is, the dependence of the refractive index on frequency. Many of the experiments he conducted, and there are more than a thousand of them, have become classics and are repeated to this day in schools and institutes.
The leitmotif of all research was the desire to understand the physical nature of light. At first, Newton was inclined to think that light was a wave in the all-pervading ether, but later abandoned this idea, deciding that the resistance from the ether should noticeably slow down the movement of celestial bodies. These arguments led Newton to the idea that light is a stream of special particles, corpuscles, emitted from a source and moving in a straight line until they encounter obstacles.
The corpuscular model explained not only the straightness of light propagation, but also the law of reflection. This assumption was that light corpuscles, approaching the surface of water, for example, should be attracted by it and therefore experience acceleration. According to this theory, the speed of light in water should be greater than in air, which conflicted with later experimental data.
The formation of corpuscular ideas about light was clearly influenced by the fact that at that time the work that was destined to become the main great result of Newton’s work had already been largely completed: the creation of a unified physical picture of the World based on the laws of mechanics formulated by him.
This picture was based on the idea of material points, physically infinitesimal particles of matter and the laws governing their movement. It was the clear formulation of these laws that gave Newtonian mechanics completeness. The first of these laws was, in fact, the definition of inertial reference systems: it is in such systems that material points that do not experience any influences move uniformly and rectilinearly.
The second law of mechanics plays a central role. It states that the change in quantity, motion of the product of mass and speed per unit time is equal to the force acting on a material point. The mass of each of these points is a constant value. In general, all these points “do not wear out,” as Newton put it, each of them is eternal, that is, it can neither arise nor be destroyed. Material points interact, and the quantitative measure of the impact on each of them is force. The problem of figuring out what these forces are is the root problem of mechanics.
Finally, the third law, the law of “equality of action and reaction,” explained why the total momentum of any body that does not experience external influences remains unchanged, no matter how its constituent parts interact with each other.
Having posed the problem of studying various forces, Isaac Newton himself gave the first brilliant example of its solution, formulating the law of universal gravitation: the force of gravitational attraction between bodies whose dimensions are significantly less than the distance between them is directly proportional to their masses, inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them and directed along connecting them with a straight line. The law of universal gravitation allowed Newton to give a quantitative explanation of the movement of the planets around the Sun and the Moon around the Earth, and to understand the nature of sea tides.
This could not fail to make a huge impression on the minds of researchers. The program for a unified mechanical description of all natural phenomena: both “earthly” and “heavenly” was established in physics for many years. Moreover, for many physicists over the course of two centuries, the very question of the limits of applicability of Newton's laws seemed unjustified.
In 1668, Isaac Newton returned to Cambridge and soon received the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics. This chair was previously occupied by his teacher Isaac Barrow, who gave the chair to his favorite student in order to provide for him financially. By that time, Newton was already the author of the binomial and the creator of the fluxion method, what is now called differential and integral calculus.
In general, this period became the most fruitful in Newton’s work: in seven years, from 1660 to 1667, his main ideas were formed, including the idea of the law of universal gravitation. Not limiting himself to theoretical research alone, Isaac Newton in the same years designed and began to create a reflecting telescope.
This work led to the discovery of what were later called interference "lines of equal thickness". Newton, realizing that the “quenching of light by light” was manifested here, which did not fit into the corpuscular model, tried to overcome the difficulties that arose here by introducing the assumption that corpuscles in light move in waves, “tides.”
The second of the telescopes produced served as the occasion for Newton's presentation as a member of the Royal Society of London. When a scientist refused membership, citing a lack of funds to pay membership fees, it was considered possible, given his scientific merits, to make an exception for him, exempting him from paying them.
Being a very cautious person by nature, Isaac Newton, against his will, sometimes found himself drawn into discussions and conflicts that were painful for him. Thus, his theory of light and colors, outlined in 1675, caused such attacks that Newton decided not to publish anything on optics while Hooke, his most bitter opponent, was alive.
Newton also had to take part in political events. From 1688 to 1694, the scientist was a member of parliament. By that time, his main work, “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy,” was published, the basis of the mechanics of all physical phenomena, from the movement of celestial bodies to the propagation of sound. For several centuries to come, this program determined the development of physics, and its significance has not been exhausted to this day.
Constant enormous nervous and mental stress led to the fact that in 1692 Newton fell ill with a mental disorder. The immediate impetus for this was a fire in which all the manuscripts he prepared were lost.
The constant oppressive feeling of material insecurity was undoubtedly one of the reasons for Newton’s illness. Therefore, the position of Warden of the Mint, while retaining his professorship at Cambridge, was of great importance to him. Zealously starting work and quickly achieving noticeable success, in 1699 he was appointed director. It remained impossible to combine this with teaching, and Newton moved to London.
At the end of 1703, Isaac Newton was elected president of the Royal Society. By that time, Newton had reached the pinnacle of fame. In 1705, he was elevated to knighthood, but, having a large apartment, six servants and a wealthy family, the scientist remains lonely. The time of active creativity is over, and Newton limits himself to preparing the edition of “Optics”, the republication of “Principles” and the interpretation of “Holy Scripture”. He owns the interpretation of the Apocalypse, an essay about the prophet Daniel.
Isaac Newton died on March 31, 1727 at his home in London. Buried in Westminster Abbey. The inscription on his grave ends with the words: “Let mortals rejoice that such an adornment of the human race lived in their midst.” Every year, on the birthday of the great Englishman, the scientific community celebrates Newton Day.
Works of Isaac Newton
"A New Theory of Light and Colors", 1672 (communication to the Royal Society)
“Motion of Bodies in Orbit” (lat. De Motu Corporum in Gyrum), 1684
“Mathematical principles of natural philosophy” (lat. Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica), 1687
“Optics or a treatise of the reflections, refractions, inflections and colors of light,” 1704
“On the quadrature of curves” (lat. Tractatus de quadratura curvarum), appendix to “Optics”
“Enumeration of lines of the third order” (lat. Enumeratio linearum tertii ordinis), appendix to “Optics”
“Universal Arithmetic” (lat. Arithmetica Universalis), 1707
“Analysis by means of equations with an infinite number of terms” (lat. De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas), 1711
"Method of Differences", 1711
"Lectures on Optics" (eng. Optical Lectures), 1728
“The System of the World” (Latin: De mundi systemate), 1728
“A Short Chronicle” (eng. A Short Chronicle from the First Memory of Things in Europe, to the Conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great), 1728 (this is a summary of the “Chronology of the Ancient Kingdoms”, a French translation of the draft version was published even earlier, in 1725)
The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, 1728
“Notes on the Book of the Prophet Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John" (eng. Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John), 1733, written around 1690
“Method of Fluxions” (Latin Methodus fluxionum, English Method of Fluxions), 1736, written in 1671
An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture, 1754, written 1690
Canonical editions
Classic complete edition of Newton's works in 5 volumes in the original language:
Isaac Newtoni. Opera quae existant omnia. - Commentariis illustravit Samuel Horsley. - Londini, 1779-1785.
Selected correspondence in 7 volumes:
Turnbull, H. W. (Ed.),. The Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton. - Cambridge: Cambr. Univ. Press, 1959-1977.
Translations into Russian
Newton I. General Arithmetic or Book on Arithmetic Synthesis and Analysis. - M.: Publishing house. USSR Academy of Sciences, 1948. - 442 p. - (Classics of science).
Newton I. Notes on the book of the prophet Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John. - Petrograd: New Time, 1915.
Newton I. Corrected chronology of ancient kingdoms. - M.: RIMIS, 2007. - 656 p.
Newton I. Lectures on optics. - M.: Publishing house. USSR Academy of Sciences, 1946. - 298 p.
Newton I. Mathematical principles of natural philosophy / Translation from Latin and notes by A.N. Krylova. - M.: Nauka, 1989. - 688 p.
Newton I. Mathematical works. - M.-L.: ONTI, 1937.
Newton I. Optics or treatise on reflections, refractions, bendings and colors of light. - M.: Gostekhizdat, 1954.
Danilov Yu. A. Newton and Bentley // Questions of the history of natural science and technology. - M., 1993. - No. 1. This is a translation of four letters from Newton from the collection of his correspondence: “The Correspondence of Isaac Newton”, Cambridge, 1961. Vol. 3 (1688-1694).
