Sir Isaac Newton

1642-1727

English Physicist and Mathematician

Sir Isaac Newton is regarded as one of the greatest scientists of all time. His work represents a major turning point in the history of science. He synthesized the work of his predecessors Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), René Descartes (1596-1650), and others into a new understanding of the mathematical nature of the world, culminating in what has come to be known as the Scientific Revolution. Newton's major contributions include the discovery of the three laws of motion that form the basis of modern physics and the law of gravitation, the development of infinitesimal calculus, and the beginning of modern physical optics.

Newton had a troubled childhood. His father, an illiterate farmer, died before he was born, and he was raised by his grandmother after his mother married a man whom Isaac hated. These early circumstances may explain the fact that he was never psychologically stable. He suffered mental and emotional breakdowns in 1678 and 1693, and has been described as tyrannical, unstable, autocratic, suspicious, neurotic, and tortured.

Newton received a bachelor's degree at Trinity College, Cambridge University, in 1665. He was not a good student in the sense of doing required academic work well. Instead, he pursued his own interests, reading the works of scientists and philosophers such as Descartes, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), Kepler, and Galileo.

After graduation, he was forced to return home for two years because of the plague. It was during this period that his brilliance became apparent. By the time he returned to Cambridge in 1667 he had developed infinitesimal calculus, had made basic contributions to the theory of color, and had developed ideas concerning the motion of the planets. He was elected a fellow, received his masters degree in 1668, and was named the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669 when he was only 26 years old. He held this position for 32 years.

Newton published his first paper, on the theory of color, in 1672 and was elected to the Royal Society as a result of his invention of a reflecting telescope. His subsequent studies in optics resulted in the foundation of modern physical optics. He showed that white light is composed of a spectrum of colors, and he developed new theories of light and color based on the mathematical treatment of observations and experiments. He believed that light is made up of corpuscles instead of waves.

In the field of mechanics, his discovery of the three laws of motion that are obeyed by all objects provided the foundation upon which modern physics and, indeed, modern science are built. He also discovered the law of universal gravitation and explained the motion of the planets. The results of his work were published as Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, often called simply Principia, in 1687.

In mathematics, Newton discovered the binominal theory in addition to infinitesimal calculus. He also studied and wrote in the fields of alchemy, history, music theory, chemistry, astronomy, and theology.

Newton never seemed eager to publish the results of his work. When, in the course of a conversation, the astronomer Edmond Halley (1656-1742) learned of Newton's theoretical ideas about mechanics, he encouraged their final development and publication, paying the printing costs of Principia himself.

Newton was widely recognized and honored for his groundbreaking work. He was elected to Parliament in 1689 and 1701, and was named master of the Royal Mint in 1696. In 1703 he was elected president of the Royal Society and was reelected each year until his death. He was knighted in 1705. When Newton died in 1727 his body lay in state in Westminster Abbey for a week, and his pallbearers included two dukes, three earls, and the Lord Chancellor—all honors reserved for the most highly respected individuals in Great Britain.

J. WILLIAM MONCRIEF

A KICK FOR SCIENCE

In eighteenth-century England Anglican Bishop George Berkeley was, for a time, an important and influential critic of English physicist Sir Isaac Newton's calculus and of a clockwork universe fully explainable by physics and mathematics. Berkeley attacked the lack of logical support for calculus—and explained away the fact that it worked so well in a wide variety of applications—by contending that calculus benefited from the mutual cancellation of logical errors. In Berkeley's view the growing reliance on science and mathematics was a diminution of religious scripture as the ultimate authority regarding the nature of the universe. In 1710 Berkeley published Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, in which he examined the nature and origin of ideas and sensations and attacked materialism based on the "unreality" of matter. According to Berkeley, the physical world was actually a manifestation of a human mind under the direct control of God. Akin to the question as to whether a tree falling in the forest makes a sound if no one is there to hear it, Berkeley asserted that there was no "real" matter—only perceived matter. Moreover, the world as man perceived it was simply an illusion impressed upon the human mind by divine will. Samuel Johnson, a Fellow of the Royal Society and contemporary of Newton, attended one of Berkeley's sermons and later, while standing with friends outside the church, participated in a debate concerning the merits of Berkeley's sophistry regarding the nonexistence of matter. When it was Johnson's turn to speak he sharply stubbed his toe on a large rock and proclaimed, "I refute it thus!"

K. LEE LERNER