РефератыИностранный языкSiSir Isaac Newton Essay Research Paper Isaac

Sir Isaac Newton Essay Research Paper Isaac

Sir Isaac Newton Essay, Research Paper


Isaac Newton


Special thanks to the Microsoft Corporation for their contribution to our site. The following


information came from Microsoft Encarta.


I INTRODUCTION


Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1727), mathematician and physicist, one of the foremost scientific intellects of all


time. Born at Woolsthorpe, near Grantham in Lincolnshire, where he attended school, he entered


Cambridge University in 1661; he was elected a Fellow of Trinity College in 1667, and Lucasian Professor


of Mathematics in 1669. He remained at the university, lecturing in most years, until 1696. Of these


Cambridge years, in which Newton was at the height of his creative power, he singled out 1665-1666


(spent largely in Lincolnshire because of plague in Cambridge) as “the prime of my age for invention”.


During two to three years of intense mental effort he prepared Philosophiae Naturalis Principia


Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) commonly known as the Principia,


although this was not published until 1687.


As a firm opponent of the attempt by King James II to make the universities into Catholic institutions,


Newton was elected Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge to the Convention Parliament


of 1689, and sat again in 1701-1702. Meanwhile, in 1696 he had moved to London as Warden of the


Royal Mint. He became Master of the Mint in 1699, an office he retained to his death. He was elected a


Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1671, and in 1703 he became President, being annually


re-elected for the rest of his life. His major work, Opticks, appeared the next year; he was knighted in


Cambridge in 1705.


As Newtonian science became increasingly accepted on the Continent, and especially after a general peace


was restored in 1714, following the War of the Spanish Succession, Newton became the most highly


esteemed natural philosopher in Europe. His last decades were passed in revising his major works,


polishing his studies of ancient history, and defending himself against critics, as well as carrying out his


official duties. Newton was modest, diffident, and a man of simple tastes. He was angered by criticism or


opposition, and harboured resentment; he was harsh towards enemies but generous to friends. In


government, and at the Royal Society, he proved an able administrator. He never married and lived


modestly, but was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey.


Newton has been regarded for almost 300 years as the founding examplar of modern physical science, his


achievements in experimental investigation being as innovative as those in mathematical research. With


equal, if not greater, energy and originality he also plunged into chemistry, the early history of Western


civilization, and theology; among his special studies was an investigation of the form and dimensions, as


described in the Bible, of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem.


II OPTICS


In 1664, while still a student, Newton read recent work on optics and light by the English physicists Robert


Boyle and Robert Hooke; he also studied both the mathematics and the physics of the French philosopher


and scientist Ren Descartes. He investigated the refraction of light by a glass prism; developing over a few


years a series of increasingly elaborate, refined, and exact experiments, Newton discovered measurable,


mathematical patterns in the phenomenon of colour. He found white light to be a mixture of infinitely varied


coloured rays (manifest in the rainbow and the spectrum), each ray definable by the angle through which it


is refracted on entering or leaving a given transparent medium. He correlated this notion with his study of


the interference colours of thin films (for example, of oil on water, or soap bubbles), using a simple


technique of extreme acuity to measure the thickness of such films. He held that light consisted of streams of


minute particles. From his experiments he could infer the magnitudes of the transparent “corpuscles” forming


the surfaces of bodies, which, according to their dimensions, so interacted with white light as to reflect,


selectively, the different observed colours of those surfaces.


The roots of these unconventional ideas were with Newton by about 1668; when first expressed (tersely


and partially) in public in 1672 and 1675, they provoked hostile criticism, mainly because colours were


thought to be modified forms of homogeneous white light. Doubts, and Newton’s rejoinders, were printed


in the learned journals. Notably, the scepticism of Christiaan Huygens and the failure of the French physicist


Edm Mariotte to duplicate Newton’s refraction experiments in 1681 set scientists on the Continent against


him for a generation. The publication of Opticks, largely written by 1692, was delayed by Newton until the


critics were dead. The book was still imperfect: the colours of diffraction defeated Newton. Nevertheless,


Opticks established itself, from about 1715, as a model of the interweaving of theory with quantitative


experimentation.


III MATHEMATICS


In mathematics too, early brilliance appeared in Newton’s student notes. He may have learnt geometry at


school, though he always spoke of himself as self-taught; certainly he advanced through studying the


writings of his compatriots William Oughtred and John Wallis, and of Descartes and the Dutch school.


Newton made contributions to all branches of mathematics then studied, but is especially famous for his


solutions to the contemporary problems in analytical geometry of drawing tangents to curves


(differentiation) and defining areas bounded by curves (integration). Not only did Newton discover that


these problems were inverse to each other, but he discovered general methods of resolving problems of


curvature, embraced in his “method of fluxions” and “inverse method of fluxions”, respectively equivalent to


Leibniz’s later differential and integral calculus. Newton used the term “fluxion” (from Latin meaning “flow”)


because he imagined a quantity “flowing” from one magnitude to another. Fluxions were expressed


algebraically, as Leibniz’s differentials were, but Newton made extensive use also (especially in the


Principia) of analogous geometrical arguments. Late in life, Newton expressed regret for the algebraic style


of recent mathematical progress, preferring the geometrical method of the Classical Greeks, which he


regarded as clearer and more rigorous.


Newton’s work on pure mathematics was virtually hidden from all but his correspondents until 1704, when


he published, with Opticks, a tract on the quadrature of curves (integration) and another on the


classification of the cubic curves. His Cambridge lectures, delivered from about 1673 to 1683, were


published in 1707.


A The Calculus Priority Dispute Newton had the essence of the methods of fluxions


by 1666. The first to become known, privately, to other mathematicians, in 1668, was his method of


integration by infinite series. I

n Paris in 1675 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz independently evolved the first ideas


of his differential calculus, outlined to Newton in 1677. Newton had already described some of his


mathematical discoveries to Leibniz, not including his method of fluxions. In 1684 Leibniz published his first


paper on calculus; a small group of mathematicians took up his ideas.


In the 1690s Newton’s friends proclaimed the priority of Newton’s methods of fluxions. Supporters of


Leibniz asserted that he had communicated the differential method to Newton, although Leibniz had claimed


no such thing. Newtonians then asserted, rightly, that Leibniz had seen papers of Newton’s during a London


visit in 1676; in reality, Leibniz had taken no notice of material on fluxions. A violent dispute sprang up, part


public, part private, extended by Leibniz to attacks on Newton’s theory of gravitation and his ideas about


God and creation; it was not ended even by Leibniz’s death in 1716. The dispute delayed the reception of


Newtonian science on the Continent, and dissuaded British mathematicians from sharing the researches of


Continental colleagues for a century.


IV MECHANICS AND GRAVITATION


According to the well-known story, it was on seeing an apple fall in his orchard at some time during 1665


or 1666 that Newton conceived that the same force governed the motion of the Moon and the apple. He


calculated the force needed to hold the Moon in its orbit, as compared with the force pulling an object to


the ground. He also calculated the centripetal force needed to hold a stone in a sling, and the relation


between the length of a pendulum and the time of its swing. These early explorations were not soon


exploited by Newton, though he studied astronomy and the problems of planetary motion.


Correspondence with Hooke (1679-1680) redirected Newton to the problem of the path of a body


subjected to a centrally directed force that varies as the inverse square of the distance; he determined it to


be an ellipse, so informing Edmond Halley in August 1684. Halley’s interest led Newton to demonstrate the


relationship afresh, to compose a brief tract on mechanics, and finally to write the Principia.


Book I of the Principia states the foundations of the science of mechanics, developing upon them the


mathematics of orbital motion round centres of force. Newton identified gravitation as the fundamental force


controlling the motions of the celestial bodies. He never found its cause. To contemporaries who found the


idea of attractions across empty space unintelligible, he conceded that they might prove to be caused by the


impacts of unseen particles.


Book II inaugurates the theory of fluids: Newton solves problems of fluids in movement and of motion


through fluids. From the density of air he calculated the speed of sound waves.


Book III shows the law of gravitation at work in the universe: Newton demonstrates it from the revolutions


of the six known planets, including the Earth, and their satellites. However, he could never quite perfect the


difficult theory of the Moon’s motion. Comets were shown to obey the same law; in later editions, Newton


added conjectures on the possibility of their return. He calculated the relative masses of heavenly bodies


from their gravitational forces, and the oblateness of Earth and Jupiter, already observed. He explained tidal


ebb and flow and the precession of the equinoxes from the forces exerted by the Sun and Moon. All this


was done by exact computation.


Newton’s work in mechanics was accepted at once in Britain, and universally after half a century. Since


then it has been ranked among humanity’s greatest achievements in abstract thought. It was extended and


perfected by others, notably Pierre Simon de Laplace, without changing its basis and it survived into the late


19th century before it began to show signs of failing. See Quantum Theory; Relativity.


V ALCHEMY AND CHEMISTRY


Newton left a mass of manuscripts on the subjects of alchemy and chemistry, then closely related topics.


Most of these were extracts from books, bibliographies, dictionaries, and so on, but a few are original. He


began intensive experimentation in 1669, continuing till he left Cambridge, seeking to unravel the meaning


that he hoped was hidden in alchemical obscurity and mysticism. He sought understanding of the nature and


structure of all matter, formed from the “solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable particles” that he


believed God had created. Most importantly in the “Queries” appended to “Opticks” and in the essay “On


the Nature of Acids” (1710), Newton published an incomplete theory of chemical force, concealing his


exploration of the alchemists, which became known a century after his death.


VI HISTORICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL STUDIES


Newton owned more books on humanistic learning than on mathematics and science; all his life he studied


them deeply. His unpublished “classical scholia” explanatory notes intended for use in a future edition of


the Principia reveal his knowledge of pre-Socratic philosophy; he read the Fathers of the Church even


more deeply. Newton sought to reconcile Greek mythology and record with the Bible, considered the


prime authority on the early history of mankind. In his work on chronology he undertook to make Jewish


and pagan dates compatible, and to fix them absolutely from an astronomical argument about the earliest


constellation figures devised by the Greeks. He put the fall of Troy at 904 BC, about 500 years later than


other scholars; this was not well received.


VII RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS AND PERSONALITY Newton


also wrote on Judaeo-Christian prophecy, whose decipherment was essential, he thought, to the


understanding of God. His book on the subject, which was reprinted well into the Victorian Age,


represented lifelong study. Its message was that Christianity went astray in the 4th century AD, when the


first Council of Nicaea propounded erroneous doctrines of the nature of Christ. The full extent of Newton’s


unorthodoxy was recognized only in the present century: but although a critic of accepted Trinitarian


dogmas and the Council of Nicaea, he possessed a deep religious sense, venerated the Bible and accepted


its account of creation. In late editions of his scientific works he expressed a strong sense of God’s


providential role in nature.


VIII PUBLICATIONS


Newton published an edition of Geographia generalis by the German geographer Varenius in 1672. His


own letters on optics appeared in print from 1672 to 1676. Then he published nothing until the Principia


(published in Latin in 1687; revised in 1713 and 1726; and translated into English in 1729). This was


followed by Opticks in 1704; a revised edition in Latin appeared in 1706. Posthumously published writings


include The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728), The System of the World (1728), the


first draft of Book III of the Principia, and Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the


Apocalypse of St John (1733).

Сохранить в соц. сетях:
Обсуждение:
comments powered by Disqus

Название реферата: Sir Isaac Newton Essay Research Paper Isaac

Слов:2354
Символов:16075
Размер:31.40 Кб.