We continue expanding in Overstory our category of biographies dedicated to characters in history and this time we are talking about Isaac Newtonfrom which we will review the main milestones in the life of one of the greatest scientists in history, and his impressive ideas, such as the discovery of the Law of Gravity, which transformed the way of understanding the world.
Article Index
- life of isaac newton
- Newton’s Law of Gravity
- Other discoveries and inventions of Isaac Newton
- Video of the life of Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton is among the most important scientists in history. His theories and discoveries had a strong impact, creating uA new way of understanding the phenomena of naturea. That is why we consider that Newton has been -due to his contribution to science- a historical character of great relevance in the profound social changes that occurred in Modernity. We propose a brief overview of his work and his life.
life of isaac newton
The isaac newton biography begins with his birth in Woolsthorpe (lincolnshire, England) on January 4, 1643. The first studies of it were carried out in the Trinity College of cambridge. There he came into contact with the works of important scientists, which would serve as the basis for his future work.
In his career as scientific many were the contributions made and in different fields: optics, math, physics. But without a doubt the greatest and best known of his was his work Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica. In the Principia -as the work is known- Newton establishes the bases of the Classical Mechanics through the Three Laws of Dynamics.
These Laws of Dynamics are also called the Newton’s laws”. Its importance lies in the fact that through it it was possible to explain the movement of bodies, its effects and its causes. The Newton’s first law it is “The Principle of Inertia”. The second one is the “law of interaction and force. While the Newton’s third law is the “law of action-reaction”.
Isaac Newton died in London in 1727. Following your Biography and his enormous career as scientific (with contributions that gave a real turn to science) it is possible to understand why many consider him the greatest scientific of the history and – to his work Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica– the peak of the Scientific revolution.
Newton’s Law of Gravity
Also in his work start, Isaac Newton developed one of the key concepts of modern physics: the law of universal gravitationbetter known as law of gravity. The law holds that the Gravitational force between two bodies (for example the Land and the Moon) is related to the mass and the distance between the bodies. With this postulate scientist, Newton was able to explain the observable physical phenomena in the universe.
In his studies on optics, Newton showed that the light white was actually the conjunction of a band of colors. The demonstration is the famous experiment in which the light through a prism. Furthermore, in his general theory about light determined that it is formed by particles, and that the path in which it propagates is a straight line.
Isaac Newton also made significant contributions scientists in other fields of knowledge. He developed the thermal conduction law, conducted studies on the speed of sound, created a theory about the origin of stars. In mathematics, newton developed the binomial theoremand -along with Leibniz– the integral and differential calculus.
Other discoveries and inventions of Isaac Newton
Newton is mainly known, and not surprisingly, for his Law of Gravity, but his discoveries and contributions to humanity do not stop there, far from it. In addition to this he carried out numerous experiments and managed to make great discoveries.
The laws of motion
Isaac Newton was also famous for his contributions in the field of physics. One of them, perhaps the most outstanding, is the elaboration of the fundamental principles of movement, which are summarized in the three laws of movement: inertia, force, action and reaction.
Decomposition of light into colors
There is no doubt that Isaac Newton is, along with other great thinkers such as Thomas Edison, one of the great inventors in history. Another of his great discoveries was the decomposition of light into colors. What today seems obvious to us, at the time caused quite a sensation. Using little more than a simple prism, Newton managed, in 1667, to convince the members of the Royal Society that light breaks down into different pure colors, which are the same as those of the rainbow, and that the sum of all these colors would give rise to the color white.
Optics
As we can deduce from the previous example, Newton was very passionate about optics, in fact one of his most important books bears that title. In his work, Newton makes the basic definitions, which are still valid today, of terms such as light rays, refraction and reflection, or angle of incidence. Contributions that more than a century later would be essential for arts such as photography.
pet doors
Interestingly, in addition to the great inventions and discoveries he made for science, Isaac Newton also had other simpler occurrences, but which have also gone down in history in one way or another. For example, did you know that it was Newton who invented cat and dog doors? Indeed, it is known that Newton was a very shy person in life and that he never married, but he was a great animal lover (He lived with a large number of dogs and cats). So this was another of the inventions that Newton left for posterity, however little it may seem to someone of his intellect.
World’s End
It is noteworthy that Newton, despite being a man of science, was also very interested in matters where reason had less weight. For example, he spent years trying to create the Philosopher’s Stone, a stone with occult powers. Furthermore, he wrote end of the world theories, based on the reading of the Bible. According to his calculations, the world will come to an end around the year 2070.
Other investigations of Isaac Newton beyond science
Although Isaac Newton he will always be remembered by posterity as a man of science, we must remember that he is also a son of his time. That means that he also had many and varied interests that today would be considered little more than superstitions, but were very important in the belief system of the Modern Age. In fact, Isaac Newton dedicated many writings to investigate topics related to alchemy, the occult and the interpretation of the Bible, feeling a special predilection for the Apocalypse. In fact, many authors consider that, given the time he dedicated to this type of study, it can be considered that these investigations were his main point of interest, since he invested much more time and effort in them than in scientific discoveries. which later gave him immortal fame.
Even the famous economist John Maynard Keynes, famous for his macroeconomic theories, came to affirm, in view of the large number of writings that Isaac Newton had dedicated to the study of different subjects related to alchemy and superstitionthat Newton could hardly be considered the first representative of the age of reason, but more likely that he would have been the last survivor of the age of the magicians.
Thus, it is known that Newton tirelessly pursued the philosopher’s stone riddle, the legendary chemical element that would allow base metals to be converted into gold or silver. Isaac Newton did an enormous amount of research on it and wrote hundreds of pages on it. The vast majority of which were never published during his lifetime and were rediscovered during the first half of the 20th century.
Likewise, he also wrote an enormous amount of notes referring to the interpretation of biblical texts as a way and guide to study life and nature. We must remember that at the time in which Newton lived, the Bible was not considered only as a religious text, but as a true explanation of the world. In fact, to cite just one example, it served for a long time as a guide for different scholars to determine the age of the world and it was not until much later that more scientific methods refuted those calculations based on it. Therefore, it is not surprising that Newton devoted significant attention to this type of research. For example, based on biblical texts, Newton predicted that the world would not end before 2060 and that people who promulgated closer dates should stop doing so, since their constant failures discredited biblical texts.
Newton also devoted much time to the study of the famous Solomon’s Temple, to the concept of prisca sapientia (the sacred wisdom transmitted by God to Moses and Solomon) and to the examination of the famous sacred geometry that characterized this building. In any case, Newton, like many other scholars of the time, considered that the writings of the ancient philosophers and, above all, the Bible, were hidden, so that only those who could decipher their complex codes could find it. Thus, Newton spent much of his life trying to figure out all the secrets of the bible through a careful and continuous study of it, a dedication to which he invested much more time than what we consider today scientific studies. However, we must never lose sight of his historical context, since in his time it is much more likely that Newton considered the investigations linked to the Bible to be more accurate than those that gave him immortal fame.
Video of the life of Isaac Newton
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