Isaac Newton: The most influential scientist of all time; Birthday Special
Isaac Newton was a physicist and mathematician who developed the principles of modern physics, including the laws of motion and is credited as one of the great minds of the 17th-century.
Newton was born on January 4, 1643, in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England.
Newton was the only son of a prosperous local farmer, also named Isaac, who died three months before he was born. A premature baby born tiny and weak, Newton was not expected to survive.
When he was 3 years old, his mother, Hannah Ayscough Newton, remarried a well-to-do minister, Barnabas Smith, and went to live with him, leaving young Newton with his maternal grandmother.
The experience left an indelible imprint on Newton, later manifesting itself as an acute sense of insecurity.
At age 12, Newton was reunited with his mother after her second husband died.
Newton was enrolled at the King’s School in Grantham, a town in Lincolnshire, where he lodged with a local apothecary and was introduced to the fascinating world of chemistry.
However, His mother pulled him out of school at age 12. Her plan was to make him a farmer and have him tend the farm. And his uncle helped him persuade his graduation from Cambridge Trinity College.
During his first three years at Cambridge, Newton was taught the standard curriculum but was fascinated with the more advanced science.
It was during this time that Newton kept a second set of notes, entitled “Quaestiones Quaedam Philosophicae” (“Certain Philosophical Questions”). The “Quaestiones” reveal that Newton had discovered the new concept of nature that provided the framework for the Scientific Revolution. Though Newton graduated without honors or distinctions, his efforts won him the title of scholar and four years of financial support for future education.
Newton made discoveries in optics, motion and mathematics. Newton theorized that white light was a composite of all colors of the spectrum, and that light was composed of particles.
Newton’s first major public scientific achievement was designing and constructing a reflecting telescope in 1668.
Between 1665 and 1667, Newton returned home from Trinity College to pursue his private study, as school was closed due to the Great Plague. He saw an apple fall from a tree, leading him to wonder why it fell straight down and not at an angle. Consequently, he began exploring the theories of motion and gravity.
Later, everyone knows Newton law of motion is still the most important and valued theories of all time