ABOUT NEWTON
Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27[a]) was an English polymath active as a
mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author who was described in his
time as a natural philosopher.[5] Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the
Enlightenment that followed.[6] Newton's book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica
(Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), first published in 1687, achieved the first great
unification in physics and established classical mechanics.[7][8] Newton also made seminal
contributions to optics, and shares credit with German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for
formulating infinitesimal calculus, though he developed calculus years before Leibniz.[9][10] He
contributed to and refined the scientific method, and his work is considered the most influential in
bringing forth modern science.[11][12][13][14][15]
In the Principia, Newton formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that formed the
dominant scientific viewpoint for centuries until it was superseded by the theory of relativity. He
used his mathematical description of gravity to derive Kepler's laws of planetary motion, account for
tides, the trajectories of comets, the precession of the equinoxes and other phenomena, eradicating
doubt about the Solar System's heliocentricity.[16] Newton solved the two-body problem, and
introduced the three-body problem.[17] He demonstrated that the motion of objects on Earth and
celestial bodies could be accounted for by the same principles. Newton's inference that the Earth is
an oblate spheroid was later confirmed by the geodetic measurements of Maupertuis, La
Condamine, and others, thereby convincing most European scientists of the superiority of
Newtonian mechanics over earlier systems.
Newton built the first reflecting telescope and developed a sophisticated theory of colour based on
the observation that a prism separates white light into the colours of the visible spectrum. His work
on light was collected in his influential book Opticks, published in 1704. He formulated an empirical
law of cooling, which was the first heat transfer formulation and serves as the formal basis of
convective heat transfer,[18] made the first theoretical calculation of the speed of sound, and
introduced the notions of a Newtonian fluid and a black body. Furthermore, he made early
investigations into electricity,[19][20] with an idea from his book Opticks arguably the beginning of
the field theory of the electric force.[21] In addition to his creation of calculus, as a mathematician,
he generalized the binomial theorem to any real number, contributed to the study of power series,
developed a method for approximating the roots of a function, classified most of the cubic plane
curves, and also originated the Newton-Cotes formulas for numerical integration.[22] He further
devised an early form of regression analysis.[23]
Newton was a fellow of Trinity College and the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the
University of Cambridge; he was appointed at the age of 26. He was a devout but unorthodox
Christian who privately rejected the doctrine of the Trinity. He refused to take holy orders in the
Church of England, unlike most members of the Cambridge faculty of the day. Beyond his work on
the mathematical sciences, Newton dedicated much of his time to the study of alchemy and biblical
chronology, but most of his work in those areas remained unpublished until long after his death.
Politically and personally tied to the Whig party, Newton served two brief terms as Member of
Parliament for the University of Cambridge, in 1689–1690 and 1701–1702. He was knighted by
Queen Anne in 1705 and spent the last three decades of his life in London, serving as Warden (1696–
1699) and Master (1699–1727) of the Royal Mint, in which he increased the accuracy and security of
British coinage,[24][25] as well as president of the Royal Society (1703–1727).
Bibliography:
1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton
