This insight led him to apply the concept to explain the motion of the Moon and the orbits of the planets. It was around 1665 when the famous event of his observing the falling of an apple and realizing the universal nature of gravity occurred. For example, his mathematical work at Cambridge was not published until 1707, after he had left his Professorship. Newton often did work that was not published until several years later. This was highly controversial as light at that time was believed to homogeneous, not particulate. He proposed the particle theory of light – today called photons – and the reflection and refraction of light by different materials. It was in this period that he carried out his famous experiments with glass prisms and studied the colour spectrum in white light. He became Professor of Mathematics at Trinity in 1669 and remained at Cambridge until 1696. While still a student he discovered the binomial theorem and set the groundwork for modern calculus. In 1661 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, first working as a valet to support himself and later winning a scholarship to complete his M.A. He was raised chiefly by his maternal grandmother and animosity towards his step-father and mother continued throughout his youth. Newton’s father was already dead when he was born, and his mother re-married when Isaac was three. Towards the end of his life the Monarchy was restored, but this background of strife and intolerance created issues for Newton’s work. Throughout Newton’s life these religious and political wars continued to rage in Britain with power shifting from one group to another and back again. When Newton was a child the King was deposed. The split was also between a conservative Church of England and the Puritans – radical Protestants – who supported parliament. Newton was born to a farming family at the end of 1642, into a divided Britain just starting a Civil War to decide if authority should be from a hereditary king or an elected parliament. With Galileo at one end and Einstein at the other, one figure stands at a major junction of the road and that is Isaac Newton. Reaching a true understanding of that motion has been a long road lined with obvious, but false, ideas, political and social battles and the genius of a few names. From planets, stars and galaxies to atoms, rocks and apples, the movement of things around us is a basic observation. Motion in the fundamental activity of the universe.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |