Isaak Newton

The great English scientist Isaac Newton was born in the village of Woolthorpe, not far from the university town Cambridge on December 25. 1642. Little Isaac was left to the care of his mother, grandmother and uncle who sent him to school. In his early years young Isaac made various things. He made a clock that worked by water. He also made a sun-dial. When Isaac grew older, he took a considerable interest in mathematics. His ability as mathematician and physicist was very important. His first physical experiment was carried out when he was sixteen years old.

On June 5, 1661 Newton entered the University of Cambridge where he studied mathematics. Soon he be­came famous for his contribution to mathematics by the time he was twenty-one. When Newton was twenty-two years old he began studying the theory of gravitation. In 1665, while he was on a visit in his native village, he saw an apple fall from a tree and began wondering what force made the apple fall.

At Cambridge Newton read with great interest the writings of Galileo, he knew the geometry of Descartes, he worked out the methods of calculus. So when he be­gan to think «of gravity extending to the orbit of the moon» he immediately put this idea to the test of calcu­lation. Newton performed many experiments with light and found that white light was made up of rays of different colours. He invented a reflecting telescope, that was very small in diameter but magnified objects to forty di­ameters. Newton developed a mathematical method which is known as the Binomial Theorem and also dif­ferential and integral calculus.

In 1669 Newton was appointed professor and began lectures on mathematics and optics at Cambridge and continued his work on the problem of gravitation. In 1673 Newton, gathered together all his earlier calculations and succeeded in completing his whole theory. He examined the attraction of one mass by another. He showed that a massive sphere here attracts another as if the whole mass were in the centre. This was of great importance it ena-

bled Newton to treat the problems of the sun, the moon and earth like problems of geometry. He at last justified the method of treatment which he had first adopted for the problem of the Earth and Moon. The proof of his uni­verse square law was not complete. He had demonstrat­ed that the gravitation of the earth extends as far as the moon and keeps it in its orbit. He demonstrated that this pull is in accordance with the same law as that by which a stone falls to the ground, namely gravity. Newton's great work «Elements of Natural Philosophy» was pub­lished only in the middle of 1687.

Newton's law of universe squares joined in one sim­ple mathematical statement the behaviour of the plan­ets as well as 42 of bodies on this earth. It was the first synthesis of physical knowledge. As such his contri­bution to science is unique. Isaac Newton died In 1727 at the age of 85. He was buried with honours as a na­tional hero. It was the first time that national honours of this kind had been accorded in England to a man of science.

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