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Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727)
| Isaac Newton was born on Christmas Day, 1642, in the first year of the Great Rebellion. Many people regard him as the greatest man whom England has produced but we mostly know very little about him. | |
| As a boy we know that he interested himself in conjuring tricks. As a man he made his first reflecting telescope whose most important part is a concave mirror, not lens. For this purpose he had to experiment with various alloys, and to grind his own mirrors. Today all large astronomical telescopes rely on mirrors rather than lenses to concentrate the light from distant stars. As an experimenter he showed that white light could be split up into colours. He also worked on static electrification. | |
| Newton will always be remembered as a great technician and a very great experimental physicist. In addition he was one of the greatest mathematicians, perhaps the greatest who ever lived. At the age of 22 he invented what is now called the differential calculus, and at the age of 23 – the integral calculus. Both these branches of mathematics were essentially tools of his great project of producing a mechanical account of natural events which would allow of their exact prediction. | |
| The principles governing the flight of cannon balls were being worked out at this time. Newton showed that the Moon in its course round the Earth and other planets in their course round the Sun, obeyed the same laws. This was a very great mathematical achievement. He also discovered the laws governing the flow of heat and some fluids. How deeply Newton penetrated into the nature of matter, is shown by a simple fact. The moving stars do not obey Newton’s laws exactly. But their largest deviations from these laws are about one three hundredth part of the errors of measurement made by astronomers in Newton’s day. | |
| Newton was not only a scientist. He also was a politician. In 1687 King James II threatened the liberties of Cambridge University. Newton argued the case for the University and was elected by it to Parliament in 1689, as | |
| a supporter of the Revolution. He later became Warden and then Master of the Mint. These were key points as there was no paper money in those days, so the Mint was as important as the great banks are today. His knowledge of metallurgy was put in the service of the state. In 1703 Newton was elected President of the Royal Society, the highest body of scientific learning in England. | |
| In fact Newton took part in the progressive political movements of history. Like most great men, he was an all-rounded man. The idea that scientists should shut themselves away from everyday life did not appeal to him. He saw that science arises from, and ministers to, social needs, and he acted accordingly. |
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