Life And Legacy Of Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton was an English physicist and mathematician renowned for his principles of physics. His most famous work published in 1687 is called the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. It has been called “the most influential book on physics”. His three laws of motion resulted in the discovery of the law of universal gravitation. Sir Isaac Newton was one of the greatest minds of the 17th century scientific revolution; his brilliant discoveries making him one of the most influential scientists and mathematicians of the last thousand years.
Sir Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 in Lincolnshire, England. He was named after his father who passed away a few months before Isaac was prematurely born. After his mother remarried, he went to live with his grandmother. This series of events left him feeling insecure later on in his adult life. He attended King’s School in Grantham, England. When he was 12 years old, his mother took him out of school to try to make him a farmer. He failed miserably at farming because he found farming not challenging and was sent back to school to finish his basic education. He went to the University of Cambridge’s Trinity College and attended until 1665. It was then that the bubonic plague made its way to Cambridge, forcing the university to close. After two years, he came back to Trinity College, where he earned his Master of Arts degree in 1669. While he was on break from university for those two years, Newton experienced the famous “apple falling on his head”. While the apple did not actually fall on his head, he did see an apple fall from a tree. This got him thinking why the apple fell straight down as opposed to falling at an angle. During this time, he also developed most of his important ideas including “the method of infinitesimal calculus, the foundations of his theory of light and color, and the laws of planetary motion”. These ideas contributed to his theory of gravity.
He derived the three laws of motion. These three laws helped him to explain how planets are kept in orbit by the sun’s gravitational pull. He also calculated the mass of each planet and how the sun and moon’s gravity directly relate to the Earth’s tides. Newton stated, “gravity kept the universe balanced, made it work, and brought Heaven and Earth together in one great equation. ”
Even though Newton was one of the most acclaimed scientists of all time, he spent more time studying the Bible than working on his scientific ideas. He would spend long periods of time studying the Old Testament trying to calculate the dates of the events and who wrote those books. According to Newton,”when I wrote my treatise about our system, I had an eye upon such principles as my work with considering men for the belief of a Deity and nothing can rejoice me more than to find it useful for that purpose. ” Newton believed that there was a God who created the universe.
A verse that Newton was probably familiar with and enjoyed was “He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing. ” Job 26:7. Isaac Newton was considered one of the most brilliant scientists to ever exist. His law of gravity and three basic laws of motion have contributed to everything we know about modern life. Newton once thought that he would be remembered for his writings about the Bible more than his scientific discoveries. He ended up writing much more material on theology than he ever did on scientific studies and mathematics.
