Sir Isaac Newton

It's a Fact 
Newton's interaction with people were not so good , although some historical facts reveal he was an animal lover and kept a cat and a dog. He is supposed to be the inventor of the cat flap, which enabled his cat to come and go through this without disturbing his work in the laboratory. Newton's dog's name was Diamond and Newton one day had on his table a pile of papers upon which were written calculations that had taken him twenty years to make. One evening, he left the room for a few minutes, and when he came back he found that "Diamond" had overturned a candle and set fire to the precious papers, of which nothing was left but a heap of ash. He is supposed to have said "Oh, Diamond! Diamond! thou little knowest what mischief thou hast done!

Sir Isaac Newton
``````````(1643-1728)
~~~~~~~~The Greatest Scientist of 17th Century



Born: 4 January 1643  Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, Lincolnshire, England
Died: 31 March 1728 (aged 85)Kensington, London, England 
Residence: England 
Nationality: English 
Field: Theologian, Physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alche mist, historian and monetary reformer Institutions: University of Cambridge Royal Society 
Alma mater: Trinity College, Cambridge 
Known for: Newtonian mechanics, Universal gravitation, Infini-tesimal calculus, Classical optics and particulate theory of light, Newtons law of cooling Generalized Bionomial Theorem 



Sir Isaac Newton made fundamental contributions to mathematics, physic!, and astronomy and ranks among the most scientifically gifted people whc ever lived. Newton was also the first scientist to be knighted when Queen Anne bestowed this honour on him in 1702.


If you ask a scientist whom he considers as the greatest scientist of all time definite answer would be Einstein or al7th century Cambridge don by the name of Sir Isaac Newton. In fact these two intellectuals are so influential they stand above the other scientists like demi gods. But with the range of discoveries he did Newton is perhaps the greater of the two scientists in question.


Despite what he achieved in the Later years , Newton did not display such high standards at Granthum Grammar school he attended and was good at making various mechanical devices such as wind mills. After finishing his school career Newton Attended Trinity college Cambridge in 1661 intending to study law, but later switched to Mathematics. When Plague closed the University in1665 he returned to his Lincolnshire farm and made his outstanding contributions to science.


In this period Newton invented Calculus , a mathematical theory which underlies most of applied mathematics and physics. He atso discovered the Universal law of Gravitation and put forward the his three laws of motion which bears his name. It is said that he discovered the gravitational taw by observing an apple falling from a tree hitting his head , although this is rather doubtful. What Newton said was that he was occasioned by a fall of an apple while contemplating in the Garden.



Newton also did important work in optics put forwarding corpuscular theory of light, which assumed that light consists of particles. This theory is similar to the modern theory of light although it is believed that Light has a waveparticle duality in modern physics. It is noted that Newton took criticism of his theories very personally and was an opponent to the wave nature of light, specially Robert Hooke s views on this matter. Newton published his theory of light in a book called "Optiks" in 1704, after the demise of his main antagoniser , Hooke in 1703. In 1669 Newton was appointed as the Lucasian Professor of mathematics at Cambridge University at the age of 26. He was one of the youngest people to hold this chair and Later physicists like Paul Dirac held this chair. In 1687 Newton published his most famous book known as "Principia" which is considered to be the most influential book ever written in physical sciences. He conceived the idea of the book for a long time and was reluctant to publish it since he did not like criticism. In fact it was Edmund Halley the famous astronomer is the person who financed and encouraged Newton to go public with his ideas.

Regarding Newton's invention of Calculus it is said that Leibniz, the great German philosopher and mathematician also came up with similar ideas. Now historians think that Leibniz came with the invention of Calculus later than Newton. Newton often quarrelled with Leibniz regarding this and said that he was relieved to hear of Leibniz's death in 1716. Starting in 1699, members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) and Newton's friends accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labelled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz.

Newton in 1696 became warden of the Royal mint and became it's a master in 1699. Another aspect of running the mint was dealing with counterfeiters and clippers. Clippers were people who clipped off the edges of gold coins to pocket the gold and put the coin back in circulation for its face value, even though it now had less gold than required. Before machine coinage this was a practice that was hard to detect. Newton was involved in the invention of coin edging: those vertical serrations around the edges of coins. These are there to prevent the clipping or shaving off the coins! 

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