Sir Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton
(Credit: Britannia)

On this date - in the new style calendar, Sir Isaac Newton was born into a poor family in Lincolnshire 1642. In the old style calendar, Sir Newton was actually born on Christmas Day! So a nice gift to his parents. This change in dates was a huge headache for me as I was researching. I kept constantly questioning myself on whether I was indeed posting this blog post on the right day. But for better or for worse, I decided that I would still give a blog post about an English physician and mathematician who positively effected society.
Sir Isaac Newton made a great contribution to mathematics and science within his time. The works that are the most well known were that Isaac Newton wrote the three laws of motion as well as being the discover of modern calculus and the inventor of the telescope.

The Great Myth of Newton



The apple tree at Woolsthorpe Manor
(Credit: BBC)

The popular tale known about Sir Isaac Newton is about an apple falling in 1666. It is thought to be the cause of inspiration to the nature of gravity. However, historians debate whether this story is true. And if the circumstances is that it was indeed true, these historians believe that there is nothing to prove that this sparked the interest.
Instead most of Newton's most famous work originated from the publication of Newton's book in the year 1687. This book had a complicated title which is 'Philosophiae Naturalis Prinicipia Mathematica'. Or the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy if you needed the translation. This book contained the three laws of motion...

Do you know Newton's three laws of motion?

(Don't worry if you didn't get them all. I planned on informing you anyway)

Credit: Physical Science

The first law of motion states that every object will remain at rest or in uniformed motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change by the action of an external force. This complicated sentence is just basically trying to explain that objects will move in a straight line (or say completely still) until another action/person causes the object to change. So for my example, if you kick a football (The photo on the left), it will move in a straight line until your foot alters the cause. Or if you are lucky - that it goes into the back of the net!


The second law states that force is equal to the change in momentum (mV) per change in time. For a constant mass, force equals mass time acceleration (F=ma). This law is just explaining the equation, f=ma. It also stands to explain how velocity of an object can change because of an external force.


The third law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite action. Or in the real world, if one marble hit another - the movement will be transferred into the stationary one. This law can also be applied to wings on birds/planes and jet engines thrust.

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The Science of Optics

The Spectrum of Light

Newton also worked on optics which is the science around cameras, lights, prisms and glasses. To be fair, Newton didn't research everything in this subject. He just worked on the prism which is mostly remember by those science lessons at high school where you split white light into a rainbow. But a prism doesn't just do that. Oh no, a prism can split visible light into other different rays (See the photo above).
Newton was first scientist to argue that white light was just the combination of other rays of light. This gave the space for others to find the infrared (Used in TVs) and ultra-violet (Florescence stuff) area of light.

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So Sir Isaac Newton was a great contributor to the modern society. He discovered fundamental topics of science as well as mathematics which to his time frame was actually quite revolutionary. In the year 1705, Isaac Newton was knighted by Queen Anne. Then by the year 1727, the scientist sadly passed away at the age of 84. His body was placed in Westminster Abby with the likes of Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens and now Professor Stephen Hawking.

I'll leave you with a quote that I found from Sir Isaac Newton from Space.com,

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me...

(Above quote originally from Joseph Spence, Anecdotes, Observations and Characters, of Books and Men (1820), Vol. 1 of 1966 edn, sect. 1259, p. 46)