Newton, Sir Isaac

Sir Isaac (1642-1727), an eminent English mathematician and scientist. It is noteworthy that Newton's birth occurred in the year of Galileo's death. As a lad he was fond of tools and of making playthings. A sundial constructed by him still stands at Woolsthorpe where he was born. Newton was well educated in a grammar school and in the University of Cambridge. He appears to have been a scholar by nature, with abundant leisure to follow his inclinations. He was made a professor of mathematics at Cambridge. At various times he occupied a seat in Parliament, and in 1696 he was appointed warden of the English mint, a connection which was maintained until the time of his death. His remains lie in Westminster Abbey. Newton's principal published works are his Optics, 1704, and Principia, 1713. Newton's note as a man of science rests on his enunciation of the Universal Law of Gravitation, according to which every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle with a force proportional to the product of their masses, and inversely proportional to the square of their distance apart.

An unlikely story runs to the effect that, while lying under an apple tree, Newton saw an apple fall, and that his great discovery is due to his reasoning as to why the apple should fall in one direction rather than another, and really why it should fall at all. The first question to be settled of course was one of whether its move was due to some force within the apple or due to a force outside of the apple.

Newton was an eminent mathematician. He arranged the algebraic formula known as the binomial theorem, studied the conic section known as the hyperbole, and laid the foundation for the college subject known as calculus. He was a man of industry and perseverance. A careless servant having overturned a light that burned up papers which he had spent twenty years in preparing, it is said that Newton set himself at work without delay to reproduce them.

See Gravitation; Astronomy